World News
Seminarians reflect on Pope Benedict's ministry, their own vocations
Published: March 5, 2013
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Now-retired Pope Benedict XVI "has been pope my entire adult life," said seminarian Kyle Doustou, who is studying to be a priest for the Diocese of Portland, Maine. "My mature vocation was formed under his pontificate," he told Catholic News Service. Doustou and fellow seminarians Rhett Williams and Deacons Scott Holmer and Dustin Dought reflected on the pope's eight-year pontificate and its effect on their lives as young Catholics in interviews at Theological College of The Catholic University of America in Washington. They spoke to CNS Feb. 28, the last day of the Benedict papacy, and said they were sad when they found out that the first pope they had a chance to get to know was stepping down. He was the "pope I was most aware of in my life," said Deacon Holmer, who is studying to be a priest of the Washington Archdiocese. He entered the seminary in 2007, just two years after Pope Benedict's election. He has read so many writings of the pope in the seminary that he feels like he has come to know him on a personal level, he added. Deacon Dought, a seminarian of the Diocese of Lafayette, La., was a "young senior in high school" when Blessed John Paul II died, he told CNS. Pope Benedict was the pontiff he got to know in his college years and in his time at the seminary.
Copyright (c) Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .
