As fellow seniors figure out which college to attend or career path they’d like to follow after high school, Sam Mahle plans to go in a different direction.
Next fall, the Columbus Bishop Watterson High School senior is hoping to be at the Pontifical College Josephinum as a seminarian for the Diocese of Columbus.
His interest in the priesthood reflects a recent uptick in young men considering seminary out of high school. In this year’s class of 16 new diocesan seminarians, four have come straight out of high school to pursue a religious vocation.
That’s a positive sign for a diocese – and the Catholic Church as a whole – sorely in need of priests. Only one new priest for the diocese was ordained in the past two years combined, but five are scheduled to be ordained next spring.
At the start of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Vocation Awareness Week that runs Nov. 5-11, the faithful are encouraged to pray for young men such as Mahle and for women who are answering a call to religious life or considering the possibility.
Mahle, a member of Sunbury St. John Neumann Church, traces the origins of his vocational discernment to Catholic Youth Summer Camp at the Damascus Catholic Mission Campus in Knox County during summer 2020 before his freshman year of high school.
“I’d had the priesthood in the back of my mind since I can’t remember, but I didn’t really think about it too hard until before my freshman year,” he recalled. “And when I really came to know Jesus and accept him in my life, then it all just kind of rolled from there.
“I never really knew the fullness of the faith until I went to Damascus and actually experienced Jesus in a whole new way. They just do such a good job at inviting us into a relationship with Him through prayer ministry and where other people pray over you.
“My group is praying over me, and a lot of them are getting images of me as a priest as they’re praying for me. And that kind of helped spark what I already had in the back of my mind.”
He has gone back to Damascus every summer since then and has attended winter camps and retreats as well. This coming summer, he might return as a missionary leader.
At his home parish, he credits the pastor, Father Dan Dury, who hosts one of the regional Melchizedek Project small discernment groups for high school and college-age students contemplating a vocation, for assisting him in his formation as a young Catholic.
“Father Dury has given me a lot of opportunities,” Mahle said. “Father Dury does those meetings once a month, and those are really good. It’s really good hearing from him about the life of a priest. He’s definitely someone I look up to.
“And no matter where you live, there’s a parish around or near you that has it. So that’s really good.”
Father William Hahn, the diocese’s vocations director, also has opened the door to opportunities for discernment with Quo Vadis summer retreats for young men at the Josephinum and with live-ins there during the academic year to experience the life of a seminarian while interacting with them.
“The Quo Vadis retreat just really opened me up to what seminary life was like,” he said. “I’d never really met seminarians, and I really didn’t even know what seminary was. I just thought it was like a normal college. I didn’t realize that there’s so much prayer.
“And the friendships that the seminarians have with each other, they seem to have a lot of fun. I thought it would be kind of boring before I went there.”
Before starting high school, Mahle said his spiritual life wasn’t as developed as it has become today. He described himself as a cradle Catholic who went to Mass on Sunday and prayed before meals with his family.
“That was the extent of my prayer life and my relationship with God,” he said. “I didn’t really take it seriously at all. I didn’t have daily prayer.”
From kindergarten through his sophomore year of high school, Mahle attended public school. At the start of his junior year, he transferred to Bishop Watterson.
“I knew that I wanted to be a priest, and I was discerning and all that,” he said, “but it wasn’t really until I came here to Watterson that there was a big change in my life. I opened myself up to new opportunities, and the school offered good opportunities for me to grow closer to God, specifically through my prayer club and Father (Paul) Noble offering Masses and in my theology classes.”
Mahle attends Mass in the school chapel celebrated by Father Noble on Tuesdays and Fridays before classes begin and joins other students for daily prayer and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Wednesdays.
He has been pleasantly surprised by how helpful the teachers were both academically and spiritually.
“I wanted to be more around the Catholic culture,” he said. “Public school is very secular, and there weren’t really many opportunities for me to grow in faith no matter how hard I tried to bring others closer to Christ.”
Many of his fellow students at Watterson have heard that he’s discerning a vocation to the priesthood, and most are supportive.
“Most reactions are good,” he said. “A lot of them are like, ‘That’s so cool.’ A lot of them are like, ‘I’ve never heard that from someone my age before.’
“Some of them are like, ‘Oh, that’s odd,’ but most of them are like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing. I’m really happy for you.’”
His parents, Andy and Amanda, have supported him in his discernment. He has two siblings, Drew, 21, a junior at Ohio State University, and Lauren, 19, a sophomore at Columbus State Community College.
“My mom’s praying a lot and really doing whatever she needs to do to help me get to seminary and follow my path,” he said.
Mahle has begun the formal process of applying to the diocese for consideration. There are multiple layers to the diocese’s application process. The Josephinum also requires an application for admittance.
“My backup plan was always if I don’t get into seminary would be to become a missionary and just see where that takes me,” he said. “But I can’t really imagine myself doing anything else.”
Knowing that 16 men began the discernment process this year and others are considering entering next year is bound to encourage Mahle and others.
“And I think the new bishop has given me a lot of hope because he seems to be doing a lot of good things in the diocese,” Mahle said. “It really makes me want to stay in this diocese because he’s just doing so much for vocations.”