By Father Mark McCormick
Director of the Office of Vocations

I am excited to announce that the Office of Vocations is teaming up with the Western South Dakota Catholic Foundation to do something new in the Diocese of Rapid City. We are always looking for ways to promote and build up a culture of vocations in our diocese together. We have plenty to celebrate, and we rejoice in the Lord for his promises are true, “the harvest is plentiful,” as we hear in Mt 9:37. The plentiful harvest we see in the transitional diaconate ordination of Todd VanderMay on May 24 and the priesthood ordination of Deacon Max Vetch on June 27. In 2026, God willing, we will have three more transitional deacon ordinations leading to priesthood: ordinations for Josiah Hanson, Blane Schriock and Dillon Johnson.

In February of this year, “The Catholic World Report” listed the Diocese of Rapid City in the top ten percent of the dioceses in the United States with the highest ratio of seminarians to Catholics. In 2024, the Diocese of Rapid City had eleven seminarians: one per 1,904 Catholics.

To celebrate this good news, we are planning our First Bishop’s Dinner for Seminarian Education called Surgite Eamus. The dinner will be held Saturday, August 2, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, beginning with 5:30 p.m. Mass with Bishop Scott Bullock. Following Mass, we will have a celebratory dinner with our seminarians present so that you, too, can see this bountiful harvest and hear some of their testimonies of what Jesus is doing in their lives.

We are hoping to fill all four hundred seats at the St. Joseph’s Hall for our First Bishop’s Dinner for Seminarian Education — Surgite Eamus, “Rise, let us be on our way.” Click here for more information.