Seminarian Deacon Patrick Sorrells

Fargo, ND
Theology IV
Saint Paul Seminary; St. Paul, MN

Deacon Pat Sorrells was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota in a Protestant Christian household going to Church on Sundays, attending Bible studies, and going to youth group activities. For a lot of his life he attended church with his family at a nondenominational Protestant church. During his second semester of college he began to take his faith more seriously and purchased his own personal Bible and journal. Subsequently, Pat attended various Protestant college ministry programs while attending Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. During the second semester of his junior year of college, one of Pat’s Catholic friends began discussing the Catholic faith with him and helped him see some of the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. This friend plugged Pat into the community at the Cathedral of St Mary’s in Fargo, ND where he began attending Mass and also joined the Cathedral choir. After much prayer and deepening reflection on the Catholic faith, Pat joined the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) program at the Cathedral in the fall of 2017 and was confirmed by Bishop John Folda the following Easter Vigil of 2018. That same spring Pat graduated from Concordia College with a degree in Business Healthcare Administration.

The initial calling to the priesthood began during his OCIA classes. After being Catholic for almost two years Pat got a spiritual director and attended the Operation Andrew Dinner for discerners at the Bishop’s residence. Then he began corresponding with the vocation director of the Diocese of Fargo who invited him to various events to aid his discernment. He then went on the Vianney Discernment Retreat through the Diocese of Fargo and visited St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, Nebraska with priests and other discerners for a live-in weekend. Having gathered additional information through these events and being told that seminary is a place of discernment itself where men are taught how to pray and given time to pray and that he will never have an answer about his vocational call to the priesthood unless he simply applies, he requested an application. Pat completed his pre-theology studies at Mount St. Mary Seminary in Emmitsburg, MD and currently attends Saint Paul Seminary for his theology studies.