By Laura Rodell
The ordination is scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. in St. James Cathedral Basilica, on the corner of Cathedral and Jay Streets in Brooklyn. Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio will ordain a total of six young men at the mass.One ordinand, Father Thomas R. Gilbert, 29, was born in Forest Hills, attended Christ the King High School in Middle Village and later St. John's University in Jamaica. He pursued religious studies at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, L.I., and spent his pastoral year at a parish in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Prior to entering the seminary, Gilbert taught biology for a year at Jamaica High School and as a seminarian participated in a pastoral program that took him on a two-month trip to the Dominican Republic last summer. He became a deacon at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Jackson Heights in January.Gilbert will celebrate his first mass on Sunday at 2 p.m. in Our Lady of Hope Church in Middle Village.Father Patrick Keating, 29, was born in Sunnyside and educated at Archbishop Molloy High School in Briarwood and Baruch College in Manhattan. He pursued religious studies at Cathedral Seminary Residence in Douglaston and Immaculate Conception Seminary and spent his pastoral year at a parish in Bath Beach. As a seminarian last summer, he, too, completed a two-month pastoral program in the Dominican Republic, which he prepared for by learning Spanish. He became a deacon at St. Bartholomew's Church in Elmhurst in January.Keating will celebrate his first mass on Sunday in Queen of Angels Church in Sunnyside.Father Richard P. Zuk, 31, was born in Flushing and received his education at Archbishop Molloy High School and New York Institute in Old Westbury. He studied at Cathedral Seminary Residence and Immaculate Conception Seminary before spending his pastoral year at the parishes of St. Bonaventure and St. Benedict the Moor in Jamaica. Zuk continued seminary study in Poland, where he studied the Polish language and culture firsthand at the Catholic University of Lublin, and in Cuba, where he participated in a Catholic relief services program. He has served as an emergency medical technician and in January became a deacon at St. Matthias parish in Ridgewood.Zuk will celebrate a thanksgiving mass on Sunday, June 12, at 2 p.m., in St. Fidelis Church in College Point.Ordinands at the Saturday mass will also include Father Michael L. Gelfant, 28, from Brooklyn, Father Rony Mendes, 32, and Father Donelson Thevein, 31, both born in Haiti.
