Stonington native to be ordained a priest
Michael Bovino: ‘Surely He could find someone better, but here I am’
Stonington — In 2014, when Michael Bovino entered Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland, he thought the required six years of training to become a priest seemed excessive.
“I remember thinking then, six years seems like a long time to be formed to be a priest, but now that I’m at the tail end of it, wow, I realize that six years is barely enough to scratch the surface,” said Bovino, 30, who will be ordained a Roman Catholic priest at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Saturday.
An ordination is a joyous celebration in the Catholic Church, but due to coronavirus restrictions, attendance will be limited to just 100 people, including the celebrants, in the 1,000-plus-seat cathedral, and the service will be livestreamed at norwichdiocese.org for anyone else to watch. Typically, nearly every seat would be filled.
For Bovino, a Stonington High School and University of Connecticut graduate, entering the priest
hood during a pandemic is both sobering and exciting.
“If you look at everything that is going on in the church, the country and the world, so much is converging and coming to a head, and it’s something incredibly unique for our generation,” he said.
Bovino is disappointed that the entire church community will not be able to attend his ordination, or the first Mass he celebrates on Sunday at his hometown parish, the newly rebuilt Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Pawcatuck, where there are also COVID-19 restrictions. But he said he is ready to let the Lord Jesus guide him in his infancy as a priest and to make use of all that he has learned at the seminary.
Bovino will concelebrate the ordination Mass with Bishop Michael R. Cote and will learn then what his assignment in the diocese will be. His parents, Mike and Paula Bovino, and two of his three younger brothers will be in attendance. Another brother is working overseas in Scotland and is unable to travel home.
Two weeks before the ordination Paula Bovino choked up when asked about her oldest son becoming a priest.
“I’m really, really, really proud of him,” she said. “And I think he will do amazing things. He’s been studying for six years, and he’s very knowledgeable, and kindhearted, and I know he can get people going in the right direction.”
‘He’s very ready’
Since the seminary closed due to the pandemic in midMarch and sent seminarians home to finish their studies, Michael has lived with his parents and youngest brother in Stonington. His mother said that has been a blessing, since once ordained she expects he will be very busy and the family will see less of him.
She, too, is disappointed that all the family and friends and other faithful who would like to be at the ordination will not be able to physically be there, but repeats what she said Michael told her: “He told me, ‘I told Bishop Cote, it would be OK if it’s just you and me. It’s what it’s about, not who it’s about.’”
What it’s about is finally becoming a priest, something Bovino has thought about, prayed on and studied for since his college days.
“He’s very ready,” said the Rev. Gregory Galvin, head of priestly vocations for the Diocese of Norwich, who has known Bovino since his time at UConn.
“He’s prepared well and he’s ready to take the step,” said Galvin, who added he believes the pandemic will lead to future vocations, as some who have sheltered have used the time to think and pray and be alert to a possible calling.
Bovino is one of nine current seminarians in the Diocese of Norwich and the only one to be ordained this year. The diocese averages one ordination annually, Galvin said.
The Rev. Dennis Perkins, pastor of Bovino’s hometown church in Pawcatuck, had anticipated pre-COVID-19 that the newly minted priest would draw a big crowd for his first Mass on Sunday. But with the state-mandated restrictions, only 60 people, possibly a dozen or two more if they attend as families, will be at the service.
“I’m very happy that Michael will be ordained and be celebrating his first Mass at St. Michael’s, but I’d love for the church to be full like it was at his diaconate last year,” said Perkins, of the standing-room-only crowd at Bovino’s ordination as a deacon in 2019, a preliminary step to the priesthood. There were so many people at that service, they were spilling out the doors.
A bike ride to clear his head
The local community is still showing its support for the soon-to-be Father Bovino. Maria Henry, a longtime parishioner at St. Mary Church in Stonington Borough, which has merged with St. Michael’s, made him a chasuble and stole, the garments a priest wears, after Bovino asked her to.
It was Easter 2019 when Bovino was helping Henry and other parishioners decorate the church altar and he admired a tabernacle veil she had made for St. Mary’s.
Henry, 77, who learned to sew as a girl in her native Portugal, recalled Bovino admiring the tabernacle cover and asking her to make his vestments.
“I said, ‘Oh, I never did one, I’m not sure I can do it,’” Henry recalled, and added, “And he said, ‘Oh, come on, you did that and this can’t be more complicated.’”
She agreed and made the green chasuble and stole with help from other women in the church. Funds to buy the materials were raised at a church-sponsored Christmas bazaar.
“I’ll wear it many times hopefully over the course of my priesthood,” Bovino said. “It’s beautiful.”
In recent weeks, in addition to completing his studies, Bovino has been practicing the Mass, which soon he will be celebrating on his own. And he’s been taking daily 30-mile bicycle rides, to clear his head and reflect on what’s ahead. In his final pre-ordination days, he will be in isolation, on a retreat, in New Jersey.
He’s as prepared as he can be, he said, and excited to begin ministering.
“I have a general sense of what to expect and I’m sure there will be great joys and great tragedies,” he said.
But Bovino said he’s come to understand that he won’t be on his own.
“The weight of the priesthood is not only on my shoulders, but on Jesus’ shoulders,” he said, explaining that the Lord will work through him.
“He chooses people to stand in for him and I think surely He could find someone better, but here I am.”