ATLANTA--James Stone, the son of Deacon Jim and Beverly Stone of Cumming, professed his perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the Legionaries of Christ Sept. 4 at St. Brigid’s Church in Cheshire, Conn.

A graduate of Shiloh High School in Gwinnett County who belonged to St. John Neumann Church in Lilburn, Brother Stone is currently working in Connecticut where he assists in the publication of “Sacerdos,” a magazine for priests. He also helps organize retreats for diocesan priests. His father is a permanent deacon at Mary Our Queen Church in Norcross.

Brother Stone credits the late Father Hugh Byron, a former parochial vicar at St. John Neumann, for encouraging his vocation. He said that Father Byron “introduced me to the Legion but died of bone cancer within a year after I entered the novitiate. He offered up his suffering for vocations.”

The priesthood formation program, which Brother Stone will enter, includes two years of novitiate, then classical humanities, philosophy, apostolic internship and theology.

Founded in Mexico in 1941, the Legionaries of Christ now number over 2,000 worldwide and more than three-quarters of these men are still in the formation process. The Legionaries serve the church on the local level by operating missions, schools, universities, retreat centers, family development centers and mass media outlets. Their primary contribution is the formation of lay members of the Regnum Christi movement. This effort challenges lay Catholics to live their baptismal vocation actively and fruitfully, for the sake of re-Christianizing society.