Bishop Frank J. Caggiano will ordain Trumbull resident Eric William Silva, a to the priesthood for the Diocese of Bridgeport in St. Augustine Cathedral at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 25.
“Once again the Lord has called faithful and generous men to serve the Church,” said Father Robert Kinnally, rector of St. John Fisher Seminary in Stamford. “We are blessed to have seen the good work God has done with these future ministers of Word and Sacrament and look forward to experiencing the grace that will come from their service to the Church of Bridgeport.”
Rev. Silva, who will turn 26 in August, is one of three sons of Richard and Virginia McGowan Silva. He grew up in Trumbull, where St. Theresa is still his family’s home parish. He went to Booth Hill Elementary School in Trumbull and graduated from St. Joseph High School in 2008.
During his years at St. Joe’s, he became active in the High School Apostles youth leadership program. He attended St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., until the spring semester of his junior year before entering St. John Fisher Seminary and finishing his undergraduate degree at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.
“My own call to the priest- hood began with the realization that I was made for much more than the life I was living,” he said. “After having entered the seminary, I came to know who God and his Church are at a level that I could have never have encountered had I not left college to pursue the call that God put before me.”
He was ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Caggiano on June 20, 2015. He served his deacon year pastoral assignment on Mt. St. Mary’s University campus in their campus ministry office in Emmitsburg, Md. He completed his fourth year of theological studies at the seminary there this year.
“From the first day I entered the seminary, through daily prayer, a frequent reception of the sacraments and a pursuit of virtue, God made apparent that the way in which I am called to best love him and his children is as his priest. It is a life and a vocation that I hope to live, thanking God each day for having created me for this. I can think of no better way than to spend life here on earth serving God through serving his people.”
Rev. Silva will celebrate his first mass at St. Theresa Parish in Trumbull at Sunday, June 26. Father Joseph Marcello, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Trumbull, will give the homily.