Deacon Brian Dunkle, S.J., a Long Island native and a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), will be ordained to the priesthood June 13, at the Alumni Chapel of Loyola College, Baltimore, by Bishop Carlos Sevilla, S.J., bishop of Yakima, Washington.

Deacon Dunkle, the youngest of five children of John and Margaret Dunkle, was born on March 11, 1975, in Oceanside, and raised nearby in Freeport. After graduating from Freeport High School, he attended Harvard University, earning a bachelor’s degree in the classics (Latin) in 1997. He taught high school and middle school at Marymount International School in Rome, Italy, and then completed a Master of Studies degree in Greek and Latin at Oxford University in England.

He entered the Jesuits in 1999 in Syracuse and pronounced first vows in August 2001. He studied philosophy and theology for three years at Fordham University in the Bronx, earning a master’s degree in philosophical resources. While in the Bronx, he taught catechism at a local parish and assisted on Fordham University service trips to Belize and South Africa. He spent his regency at Canisius College in Buffalo, where he taught in the classics department.

Deacon Dunkle resumed his theology studies in 2005 at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in Sacred Theology in 2008. He is currently completing a Licentiate in Sacred Theology at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Ordained to the diaconate in March 2008, he has served as a deacon at St. Catherine of Genoa Church in Somerville, Mass.
As a priest, he will serve in one of the parishes of the New York province while preparing for graduate studies in theology. His first Mass will be Sunday, June 14, 2009, at Sacred Heart Church in West Reading, Pa.