Cardinal Leo Visits Redemptorist Mater Missionary Seminary

In early March, Frank Cardinal Leo, Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto, had the opportunity to visit the Redemptorist Mater Missionary Seminary in Scarborough. Cardinal Leo had the occasion to pray vespers together with seminarians followed by a meal and fellowship. It was a time for dialogue and listening, providing the chance for Cardinal Leo to be close to the seminarians and their formation team, offering spiritual and pastoral encouragement during this season of Lent.

The first Redemptoris Mater Seminary was erected in Rome in 1987, under the inspiration of St. John Paul II. In 1997, His Eminence Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic decided to open a Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary in the Archdiocese of Toronto. The first group of seminarians began their formation in Toronto following a vocational meeting in Porto San Giorgio in September of that same year. These were the humble beginnings that resulted in the official erection of the seminary in 1999, the first priestly ordination in 2004, and, since that time, close to 30 ordinations to the priesthood.

The work of formation was first entrusted to Rev. Hector Vila, who in November 2015 was called to serve as Bishop of the Diocese of Whitehorse. Since then, Fr. Tomasz Skibinski has been leading the Redemptorist Mater Missionary seminarians.

Upon their ordination, Toronto’s Redemptorist Mater seminarians serve in the Archdiocese of Toronto, keeping in them the missionary aspect of formation, ready to announce the Good News of the merciful love of God manifested in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ to the ends of the world.