Meet Our Newest Seminarian: Austin Young
Catholic Connection: Welcome! Please introduce yourself to our diocese.
Austin Young: Hey, my name is Austin. Actually, my name is John Austin Young, but I go by Austin. I love fishing, maybe God will help me out and make me a fisher of men. My family lives in St. Francisville, Louisiana. I love going on long walks and I love praying. I like to talk and spend time with God. I like to spend time with friends. I graduated from Louisiana Tech in 2014 with a degree in Industrial Engineering.
CC: Can you share your discernment journey so far?
AY: So, it starts when I was about eight years old. To get us out of my mom’s hair she would send us to the backyard to look for fossils in the gravel. So, I did, and it was peaceful. One day she came back there and said, “you should pray, why don’t you just pray?” I wasn’t sure how to pray so she said, “just talk to God like you’re talking to a friend.” So, I tried it out, and it worked.
I went through high school and college without a whole lot of thought to it. When I was up here in Shreveport, Fr. Pike was the first priest I told that I was considering the priesthood. Later I got a job in Baton Rouge, and there I mentioned to my parish priest that I was thinking about priesthood, and he really took me under his wing. From there I entered the seminary for the Diocese of Baton Rouge in 2017. I was in Covington at St. Ben’s for two years, and after that I went to the Institute for Priestly Formation (IPF) in Omaha, NE for a summer. I started at Notre Dame in New Orleans, and then after the second year there I took a break. During that time, I was trying to figure out what to do and I ended up being with a good friend of mine, Charles. He went to kindergarten and then first grade, he’s in a wheelchair, so his parents asked me to help him at school during those years. During that time, I was still discerning the priesthood. I went to visit the Franciscans, the Mercedarians, and the Community of Jesus Crucified. Eventually the doors were open in Shreveport. I knew Fr.’s Raney and Kelby from seminary, and Fr. Peter was very instrumental in just talking with me. I told him once that if I could be a priest, it would be like winning the lottery. He said, well, Shreveport might be winning the lottery too. The open arms and encouragement from Shreveport is how I ended up here.
CC: So, what’s next in your formation journey?
AY: The plan moving forward is mid-August Tristan and I will go to St. Meinrad for seminary. For me it should be one year until I’m ordained a deacon, and then another year after that I’ll be ordained a priest. After that I should be serving as a priest in Shreveport, forever, I hope!
Interview edited for length and clarity.