Phillip Alan Bogacki was
ordained to the priesthood by Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy
M. Dolan, Friday, August 1, at 7 p.m. The Mass
was celebrated at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist,
812 N. Jackson St.
A
native of Milwaukee, Bogacki together with his brother
Matthew and his parents Patricia and Alan Bogacki, is
a member of St. Charles Borromeo Parish, Milwaukee. He
attended St. Romans Elementary School, Pius XI High School
and Marquette University where he pursued a degree in Business
Administration with a major in Accounting.
His
plans to pursue a Master’s Degree in Accounting changed
when he admitted that the call to priesthood was strong
enough that he needed to pursue the possibility.
“I
regularly met with Fr. Will Prospero, S.J., Jesuit spiritual
director and actively prayed and thought about the possible
call to priesthood,” Bogacki said.
So,
in 2003 he applied to Saint Francis Seminary and was accepted.
He
had planned to stay at Saint Francis Seminary to complete his
education but after one year was asked by Archbishop Dolan
to continue his theology studies at the American College of
the Immaculate Conception in Leuven, Belgium.
During
the summers of 2005 and 2006, Bogacki interned at St. Dominic
Parish, Brookfield with Fr. David Reith. In 2007, he
spent his summer internship at Ruth Hospice, Milwaukee.
Bogacki
was ordained a Deacon by Archbishop Dolan in Leuven on December
8, 2007.
Following
his ordination to the priesthood, Bogacki will spend one month
as an associate pastor at St. John Vianney parish in Brookfield,
then return to Leuven where he will spend an additional year
completing an S.T.L. in systematic theology at the request
of Archbishop Dolan.
He
will return to Milwaukee permanently and be assigned to a parish
in summer, 2009.
Bogacki
also celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Charles Borromeo
on Saturday, August 2nd. The Mass of Thanksgiving and
his ordination were open to the public.
Currently
34 men are studying for the priesthood in the Archdiocese of
Milwaukee at the college and post-graduate levels. This
is the largest number in more than a decade.
In
2009 six men are expected to be ordained.
