Since 2000, the diocese has ordained 16 priests or fewer than two a year. This year alone, five priests will retire.
Christopher Ballard prostrates himself as a sign of his submission to the will of God while the assembly kneels to pray at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Syracuse today. Most Rev. Robert J. Cunningham (second from left), bishop of the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese, stands over Ballard.
Syracuse, N.Y. - When Christopher J. Ballard was in the ninth grade, he started hearing voices. The first came while he said a prayer clutching a large crucifix he kept in his bedroom at the home he shared with his father and grandmother in Baldwinsville.
As he got older and more immersed in his Roman Catholic faith, the voice became more persistent and louder. The message was always the same: “You should consider becoming a priest.”
At first, he didn’t know what to make of the message. After all he was living a typical teenage boy’s life. He played baseball, swam competitively and had a girlfriend.
That changed, though, after he visited Waddhams Hall Seminary College in Ogdensburg.
There, Ballard, then 17, met other young men who were studying to become priests and he loved every minute of the stay. By the time the weekend ended, Ballard had decided to listen to the voice that was calling him and personally committed to becoming a Roman Catholic priest.
On Saturday, Ballard, now 27, was ordained into the priesthood at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Syracuse, culminating nine years of study and fieldwork. The Most Rev. Robert J. Cunningham, bishop of the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese, celebrated the two-hour Mass of Ordination. Some 500 family members and friends gave Ballard a lengthy standing ovation when he was ordained.
“At this point I’m just so excited to get out of the classroom. I can’t wait to be with people and to minister to them,” Ballard said in an interview last week.
Ballard likened choosing the priesthood to a man and woman falling in love.
“You just know that this is right, that this is what will make me happy. This is God calling me to be happy as a priest,” he said.
Ballard was assigned to St. James Roman Catholic Church in Johnson City, near Binghamton, where he spent a year of his seminary training learning the ins and outs of priesthood. He made a favorable and lasting impression on the Rev. John P. Donovan, church pastor, and on his parishioners, dozens of whom attended the ordination ceremony.
Most Rev. Robert J. Cunningham, bishop of the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese, begins mass for the ordination of Christopher Ballard at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception today.
Donovan said Ballard shined as an intern, connecting well with young and old parishioners alike. Ballard also possesses a knack for giving great sermons that are relevant and incorporate his life’s experiences, Donovan said.
“He’s going to be a wonderful priest, I can’t emphasize that enough. He’s a wonderful man,” Donovan said.
St. James parishioner John Colligan cheered Bishop Cunningham’s announcement at the end of the ceremony that Ballard would be returning to his church.
“He’s a great young man. We’re grateful he’s coming back to us,” Colligan said.
Attracting recruits into the priesthood can be a tough-sell. First, because of the vocation’s vow of celibacy and secondly because the church’s sex scandal over the last several years has tarnished the general image of priests.
Father Joe O’Connor, who shepherds recruiting efforts in the diocese, said he is starting to see a slight increase in the number of men choosing to become priests. The profession’s image is rebounding and more recruits want to give of themselves to help others and to minister the word of God, O’Connor said.
Eleven seminarians are on track to be ordained over the next five years and five recruits — possibly more — are to start seminary training, according to O’Connor.
“I like what Chris told me about why he was becoming a priest. He said, ‘What you give up is nothing compared to what you gain,’¤” O’Connor said.
After graduating from Charles Baker High School in Baldwinsville in 2001, Ballard started seminary training at Fordham University. The sex scandal broke about that time. While the news was disheartening to him at the time, Ballard said, the scandal only served to strengthen his resolve to become a good priest.
He went on to St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Md., where he earned his master’s degree in divinity and another bachelor’s degree in theology. While at St. Mary’s he trained for a year at St. James in Johnson City.
His paternal grandmother, Arlene Luckette, helped raise Ballard growing up and was Ballard’s biggest supporter when he told her that he wanted to become a priest.
“He said he had a calling to be a priest. When he said that I knew then this is what he was going to do. I was elated and I supported him all the way,” said Luckette, who sat in the first pew during the ordination ceremony.
Her grandson — Father Ballard — finished celebrating the high Mass with Bishop Cunningham. He smiled often as he hugged family and friends during the sign of peace offering and later gave communion to them at the end of the ceremony.
He’ll have his boyhood crucifix with him on the altar when he says his first Mass as a priest today at St. James. For the future, Ballard said he wants to work as a parish priest where ever that takes him so that he can help others while preaching God’s word.
“Where ever I go there are people to love and work to do,” he said.
You can reach Scott Rapp at srapp@syracuse.com or 289-4839.