October 22, 2007   •   VOL. 45, NO. 18   •   Oakland, CA

Six men enter seminaries to become
priests for Oakland Diocese
 

By Voice staff

The Oakland Diocese has six new seminarians, all of them immigrants to the U.S. Two are from the Philippines, two are from Thailand and two are from Vietnam. Four are studying at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park and the other two are students at Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon. In all, the diocese now has 18 men studying for the priesthood.

The new seminarians are:

Huong Van Le

Huong Van Le was born in Hai Phong, Vietnam. When he was nine years old, his mother died. His father remarried and Van Le’s “second mother” took care of him, his brother and three sisters “as if we were her children,” he said. He also has a younger stepsister.

Le began considering the priesthood after a parish priest invited him to become a catechist for a children’s summer program. In preparation, he studied the Catechism of the Catholic Faith and was drawn deeper into Church teachings while preparing for a diocesan competition on the catechism, which he won. His prize was a bible, which he carried with him on a walk around the parish grounds.

After stopping to pray at a statue of St. Anthony, he opened the Bible and saw the passage from Matthew 20: “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” He believes it was a sign of God’s will that he consider becoming a priest.

After much prayer, he told his family and his girlfriend that he wanted to join a pre-seminary program, to which he was accepted in August 2005.

Le, 22, had studied at Vietnam National University in HoChiMinh City, majoring in information technology. He is now a student at Mount Angel Seminary.

Philip Mon-tree Ngamwongcell

Philip Mon-tree Ngamwong was born in Ubonrat-chathani, Thailand, and attended Catholic schools there, graduating from St. John’s University in Bangkok with a bachelor’s degree in computer information management. He was a lecturer at the university prior to entering St. Patrick Seminary this August.

His desire to become a priest began when he was in junior school in his Catholic village in eastern Thailand, where most of the people are rice farmers. “We went to church almost daily for Mass and prayer,” he said of his family. French missionary priests brought Catholicism to the village about 70 years ago and “the people have good memories of those first priests,” he said. Now there are Thai priests and a Thai bishop.

Ngamwong, 28, said his connection to the Oakland Diocese came through Father Terence O’Malley, a former missionary in Thailand and currently parochial vicar at St. Raymond Parish in Dublin. “Father O’Malley knew that I wanted to be a priest and he told me to apply to Oakland,” Ngamwong said.

Peter Tu Hong Nguyen

Peter Tu Hong Nguyen, a native of Hai Phong, Vietnam, was a guide for the Hanoi Tourism Company in 2002 when he realized that he wanted to become a priest. He left his tourism post and worked for three years at Hai Phong’s cathedral and then served a parish in Khuc Gian.

In both Church positions he focused on helping young people and came to realize that “they wanted to have good priests who will listen to them.” This, he said, was a great influence on his decision to join the seminary. He arrived in the U.S. on Aug. 7 and began his studies at Mount Angel Seminary on Aug. 19. He already holds a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from Hanoi University of Foreign Language.

Nguyen, 28, is one of six children in a family of fishermen. He said he welcomes the opportunity to study to be a priest for the Oakland Diocese, especially because of its multi-ethnic diversity. “I think that when I offer my life to God, I do not care where I am. Serving God in others is my vocation.”

Giopre Prado

Giopre Prado has spent nearly half of his 31 years in seminaries and says that his conviction about becoming a priest has continued to grow.

A native of Kalibo, Aklan, in the Western Visayas of the Philippines, he attended a seminary high school and earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy with a minor in English and catechetics from Santo Nino Seminary in Aklan. He then went on to earn a bachelor’s degree, a licentiate and a master’s degree, all in theology, from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. A trained liturgist, he is now enrolled at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park

Before coming to the U.S. in August, he taught in a Catholic high school for girls in the Philippines and participated in a teacher-volunteer program that provided professional and educational training to day care teachers and elementary school teachers who did not have formal university education.

Prado, one of seven boys born to his mother, an optometrist, and his father, who works for the Central Bank of the Philippines, is proud of the many strong Catholic leaders who hail from Aklan, including the late Cardinal Jaime Sin, and Archbishop Gabriel Reyes, the first Filipino archbishop of Manila. One of Prado’s brothers is a priest who serves as a seminary spiritual director.

Because of the large number of priests in the Philippines, Prado said, he decided to become a missionary to Oakland. “After two years of exposure to social action and volunteer programs, I came to appreciate going on a mission away from my own place. I’ve come to love mission work and, considering the need in Oakland, I have found a place for me to give myself totally to what I will be called to do.”

Earl Mark Tan

Earl Mark Tan entered the seminary when he was 11, following a desire to become a priest that began when he was just 8. He attended Don Bosco Technical Institute and Maria Assumpta Seminary in the Philippines. He holds a master’s degree in classical philosophy. “I want to be a priest because I want to serve God, his Church and his people,” he said.

Tan, 23, was born in the Philippines, the only child of his parents who still reside there. It was his uncle, Father Dante Tamayo, parochial vicar at St. Isidore Parish in Danville, who suggested that he become a priest for the Oakland Diocese. “After a long series of prayer, meditation and decision-making, I was able to come up with a decision to serve the diocese,” Tan said. “It is because I consider that our Church is a universal Church.”

He is studying at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park.

Benedict Pradit Wonganant

Benedict Pradit Wonganant, who has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Seangtham University near Bangkok, has wanted to be a priest since graduating from high school. Born in Ubon, Thailand, he was a buyer and seller of fruit prior to coming to the U.S. in August to study at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park.

Wonganant, 38, grew up in a Catholic village in the east of Thailand by the Mekong River near the borders of Laos and Cambodia. His parents were farmers, supporting themselves and their nine children.

There are over 60 million people in Thailand, of whom about 200,000 are Catholic. The Church there is divided into 10 dioceses and many of the country’s large schools are Catholic. This, said Wonganant, gives the Church “great influence and respect.” The majority of Thai people are Buddhist.

Wonganant said it was his teacher in Thailand, Father Terence O’Malley, who suggested that he join the Oakland Diocese as a seminarian. Father O’Malley is parochial vicar at St. Raymond Parish in Dublin.

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