A US diocese defies trends and ordains its largest class of Catholic priests in decades

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — They are a day away from becoming Catholic priests, rehearsing for their ordination Mass under the gothic cathedral’s arches.

It’s a balmy Friday afternoon in June, and they are practicing where to stand, when to kneel. The weekend’s rituals will be the culmination of six years of seminary and a lifetime of discernment.

There are so many of them — more than their diocese has ordained at one time in nearly 30 years — that it’s a challenge to fit the whole group in front of the altar.

Their bishop likes to call them “the 12.” Like the 12 apostles of Jesus, their number has become a mantra and a prayer. It offers hope there can still be joy and renewal in a church riven by division, crises and abuse.

Among the group there are engineers, a tech company founder and two future military chaplains. They range in age from 28 to 56. Most are U.S.-born, but some trace their roots to faraway countries with a strong Catholic presence: Cameroon, Mexico, Peru, Haiti.

They are entering the priesthood at an exciting time, just as the first U.S.-born pope begins his papacy. Yet, there remains an acute shortage of clergy like them. In the U.S., the number of priests has declined by more than 40% since 1970, according to CARA, a research center affiliated with Georgetown University.

During their final year of seminary, these 12 men have served as transitional deacons, offering baptisms, homilies and promising to live in obedience and celibacy. “We’ve already made the promises that are, I guess, ‘the scariest,’” said the Rev. Ricky Malebranche, one of the ordinands.

Soon they will be entrusted with more sacraments. As ordained priests, they will work at parishes around northern Virginia, with the ability to consecrate the Eucharist, hear confessions and anoint the sick.

For now, they shuffle side to side until they can fit in a row. Carefully they lie down to practice the act of prostration — arguably the most dramatic moment during an ordination ceremony. Elbows bent, hands cradling their heads, the men press their faces to the cold, marble floor.

It’s a position of vulnerability that signals absolute surrender.

“We’re laying before the Lord,” the Rev. Mike Sampson, an ordinand, explained before the rehearsal. “We’re laying our lives down.”

While neighboring dioceses have shuttered parishes and face dire budget shortfalls, the Diocese of Arlington is opening new churches. Its finances are solid.

This year’s class of new priests is the second largest in the diocese’s 50-year history. The reasons behind that success “are a little bit mysterious,” said the Rev. Michael Isenberg, the diocese’s outgoing vocations director.

He points to one factor helping the recruiting pool: vibrant parishes, full of young professionals drawn to jobs around Washington, D.C.

Sampson, 42, was a government lawyer and raised a Protestant before he was baptized as a Catholic in 2013. Six years later, he enrolled in seminary to become a priest.

The Rev. Tim Banach, 31, worked as a consultant in the same office complex as Sampson. “I enjoyed the work I was doing, but there was something more that I desired."

“I had the dream job,” said the Rev. Alfredo Tuesta, 40, who earned a doctorate in engineering and was working at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory when he felt called to the priesthood. “I had the job that I had trained many years to achieve — and it wasn’t enough.”

At a Sunday family dinner two weeks before ordination, Malebranche’s father, Jacques, talked up these “12 great guys.”

“This kid already had two master’s degrees,” he said, pointing to his son Ricky, 37, who worked as a counselor and coach at a Catholic high school before seminary.

“They had good lives. When they say they received a call, they mean it,” he said. “They gave up a lot, and this is not easy.”

Prospective priests undergo a rigorous screening process.

“This is going to sound crazy, but they’re normal,” said the Rev. Donald J. Planty Jr., who mentored several of this year’s ordinands. “They can talk to anyone.”

In the wake of the clergy sex-abuse crisis, there is a greater emphasis on applicants’ psychological health and emotional well-being. They go before an admissions board that includes women and laypeople, and as ordinands, meet with abuse survivors.

They ultimately answer to Bishop Michael Burbidge, the diocese’s avuncular prelate.

“A thing that has changed for the positive in the church is that bishops really know their men,” said Burbidge, who calls, texts and meets with seminarians regularly. “When I was in seminary, there was no expectation that you would know the bishop.”

Politically and theologically, young U.S. priests are more likely to identify as conservative or moderate than their clerical elders who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, according to a 2023 report from the Catholic Project at Catholic University.

For these men in Virginia, the rightward tilt of the U.S. Catholic Church is not a deciding factor in their priesthoods. They have pledged, though, to uphold the church’s teachings, which remain conservative on issues such as gender identity, sexual orientation, contraception and abortion.

“I look at the young adults in our parishes, growing up in a world where in many ways the sacred has been removed,” Burbidge said. “They’re looking for something more. ‘Give me beauty. Give me truth. Give me clarity.’ I see that in young adults in our church, and these men are products of that.”

For many of the men, priesthood means forgoing dreams of an ordinary family life.

“I thought I was going to be a great dad and have a wonderful family,” Malebranche recalled. “And I was like, ‘Lord, why would you not want that for me?’”

For many, there’s a grieving process in letting go of that vision, even for deeply Catholic families.

“Every parent wants grandkids,” said Banach, whose career change initially surprised his supportive Catholic parents. Priests give up biological children, he said, but are privileged to raise “spiritual children.”

His fellow ordinand Malebranche ministers to families out of what he calls a “deep love of my own for a family.”

Two weeks before ordination, Malebranche channeled that love into a baptism conducted in Spanish, the parents’ native tongue.

He was nervous beforehand. A gregarious, gifted speaker, he is less confident in Spanish — though it’s necessary in a diocese where nearly half the parishioners are Latino.

“It was a beautiful ceremony,” Gloria Marquez told him after, beaming and holding her 9-month-old. She said she and her husband had tried for nearly 20 years to have a baby.

Malebranche teared up, grateful to be part of the longed-for moment.

He wants the Catholic Church to be welcoming, especially for those who have been hurt. “I really just want to make Catholicism warm,” he said.

Like all the ordinands, he is very aware that in his clerical garb, he represents the church and the presence of Jesus.

“I have to be on every time I’m in this collar,” Malebranche said. “That is a fitting weight for the gift of the priesthood, but it is a weight nonetheless.”

Ordination-day morning had the nervous energy of a wedding, an apt parallel for the impending commitment and pageantry. Anxious parents took their places in pews alongside friends and family who traveled from around the world to witness the ceremony.

The evening would bring receptions in honor of the new priests, who would then have two weeks off before their new ministry assignments began.

Sampson was going to Italy with a priest friend. Banach was hiking part of the Appalachian Trail with a small kit for the Eucharist in his pack. Tuesta was flying to Lima, Peru, his birthplace, to celebrate with family.

Malebranche planned to visit loved ones in his native Virginia. “I’m kind of looking to show off,” he said, laughing. “I’ll have my confessional stole on me at all times.”

When their ordination Mass got underway, it was standing room only, with more than 1,200 well-wishers crowded into the cathedral.

As part of the three-hour service, nearly 200 priests lined up to embrace and welcome into the fold their new brothers, now cloaked in ivory and blue robes.

At the close of Mass, they walked down the aisle to cheers and applause, and the 12 priests were sent out, like the apostles who had come before them.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

CORRECTS TO JOSEPH, NOT JOESPH - From left, the Rev. Joseph Connor, the Rev. Tim Banach, the Rev. John Meyerhofer, and the Rev. Mike Sampson, attend rehearsal for their ordination Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More in Arlington, Va., on Friday, June 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

The Rev. Mike Sampson gives his first Mass at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington, Va., on Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

The Rev. Ricky Malebranche holds the hand of 9-month-old Andres Roman Marquez after baptizing him at St. Louis Catholic Church in Alexandria, Va., on Saturday, May 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

The Rev. Donald J. Planty, Jr., left, assists the Rev. Tim Banach with a microphone before Banach's first Mass at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington, Va., on Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Priests and bishops bless the 12 newly ordained priests during Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More in Arlington, Va., on Saturday, June 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

The Rev. Alfredo Tuesta gives his first blessing as a newly ordained priest to Bishop Michael Burbidge, who leads the Diocese of Arlington, at the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More in Arlington, Va., on Saturday, June 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Twelve deacons prostrate in front of the altar at the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More during their ordination Mass in Arlington, Va., on Saturday, June 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

The Rev. Mike Sampson dresses for an evening meditation at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington, Va., on Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

The Rev. Ricky Malebranche, second from left, makes the sign of the cross as he leads prayers before a family meal at his home in Gainesville, Va., on Sunday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

The Rev. Alfredo Tuesta opens the door to the sacristy after a Mass at St. James Catholic Church, Falls Church, Va., on Sunday, May 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

From left, the Rev. Joesph Connor, the Rev. Tim Banach, the Rev. John Meyerhofer, and the Rev. Mike Sampson, attend rehearsal for their ordination Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More in Arlington, Va., on Friday, June 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”

The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.

With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?

“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”

Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.

Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.

Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”

Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.

“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.

Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.

Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."

“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.

The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.

The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”

Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.

“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”

Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.

Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.

“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”

Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”

Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.

“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.

Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”

“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.

AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.

In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)