The ordination of three new Jesuit priests — the Revs. Justin Grosnick, Josué Salguero and Alcidio Tembe, S.J. — took place during the ordination mass on June 10 at 10:30 a.m. in the Fordham University Church. Members of the Society of Jesus came to the university’s Rose Hill campus for the ordination, which was a weekend-long event that featured multiple masses and receptions to celebrate the new journey onto which the Jesuits are embarking.

While Salguero and Tembe hail from the Central America and Southern Africa provinces, respectively, all three men were ordained by the USA East Province and have completed a formation process, which included years of study, ministry, prayer and more in preparation for their ordination. 

“They now embark on their vocations as Jesuit priests, serving the Catholic Church and the people of God,” the USA East Province of Jesuits said.

Prior to joining the Society of Jesus in 2014, Grosnick was a teacher at a Catholic middle school in Charlotte, North Carolina. He also studied theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and worked at St. Rita’s Senior Center and the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, as well as the U.S. State Department. 

After becoming a member of the Society of Jesus, Grosnick worked at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, the L’Arche community in Syracuse, and Georgetown and Loyola universities in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, respectively. He now plans to complete his studies toward a doctoral degree in comparative theology and religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, while simultaneously working in campus ministry at the University of San Francisco.

Four years prior to Grosnick, Salguero joined the Society of Jesus in 2010, a discernment which was largely motivated by the “diversity of the Jesuit mission and the way of being with the poor people of God,” according to the USA East Province. Throughout his formation process, he has worked to organize migrants and their families, and wrote his dissertation as a philosophical analysis of migration through the work of philosopher Ignacio Ellacuría. 

Salguero also completed a master’s degree in education and learning with a specialization in psychopedagogy during his regency. Salguero concluded his theology studies at Saint Peter Faber Theologate in Brighton, Massachusetts and will now return to Boston College to pursue a licentiate of sacred theology in systematic theology. 

From a young age, Tembe began his journey to the Society of Jesus as an altar boy at the Parish of Saint John of Baptist of Matacuane, a Jesuit parish in Mozambique at which his parents attended Mass, before officially entering the novitiate in 2011. According to the USA East Province, he studied philosophy at the Loyola University of Congo for three years before returning to Mozambique to complete his regency at Ignatius of Loyola Secondary School. During his regency, he worked as a French teacher, assistant boarding master and minister. He is currently studying for a licentiate of sacred theology on moral theology with a focus in social ethics at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry.

Following the ordination mass at the Fordham University Church on June 10, a reception took place at the Joseph M. McShane, S.J. Campus Center. The weekly mass is held on Sundays at 11 a.m. at the University Church and, according to Timothy Bouffard, senior advisor to the vice president for mission integration and ministry at Fordham, the mass during this weekend is often celebrated by one of the new ordinands and is live streamed on WFUV.