Saturday 28 June was a day of many blessings, as Leeds Cathedral was filled with family, friends, clergy, religious and lay faithful to welcome Fr Philip Thornley as our latest man to be ordained by Bishop Marcus into the Sacred Priesthood for the Diocese of Leeds!
Fr Philip grew up in Cumbria where he and his three brothers were altar servers from a young age. After studying engineering at Nottingham University, he pursued a lay person’s life of active evangelisation in communities both this country and in South America. Discernment of a vocation to the priesthood can come at any time in a man’s life, and Fr Philip was in his mid forties when Bishop Marcus accepted him as a Seminarian and he began a four-year course of study at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome.
Fr Philip vested by Canon Christopher Thomas
At the end of Saturday’s Ordination Mass, Bishop Marcus broke with tradition that he should be the first to receive a blessing from Fr Philip, asking instead that Philip’s own father be the first to be blessed. After Mass the queue of family, friends and parishioners waiting to receive the new priest’s blessing stretched all the way down the nave of Leeds Cathedral!
Fr Philip blesses his own father
Fr Philip blesses his father-in-God
Whilst on his student placement at Mary Mother of God Parish in Bradford, Philip began to enjoy making videos – and upon returning to Rome filmed and edited the series Roman Holy Days and Holy Doors as a Jubilee Year project for our Leeds Cathedral Live YouTube Channel.
A livestream recording of Fr Philip’s Ordination Mass is available on our Leeds Cathedral Live YouTube channel – and with other filming of rarely-captured moments from the Ordination having taken place on Saturday, watch this website for the eventual full video of the Ordination!
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