ROME — Six years after arriving to Rome from Scotland to study for the priesthood, Matthew McCafferty and Kieran Burt were ordained deacons in the papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on May 10. Though ordained together, each had a different journey leading up to that momentous day.

And soon afterward, they met Pope Leo XIV. 

Both deacons explained that their ordination happening back-to-back with the election of a new Pope created “a real spiritual high” — especially since they had prayed and studied for so long.

“I have, for as long as I can remember, thought about becoming a priest,” Deacon Kieran Burt, 24, a deacon for the Diocese of Motherwell, told the Register. “It was nothing sort of real or concrete at first,” he added. “I just quite liked fancy vestments, and I liked the music.” 

After years of altar serving and active involvement in his parish, he couldn’t shake his thoughts about the priesthood. 

With the help of his parish priest, who also happened to be a vocations director, now-Deacon Burt was able to explore “what this feeling [he] had might actually be and whether it could be a call” and eventually applied to seminary.

For Deacon McCafferty, the journey towards priesthood began during his university studies. Upon returning home to Scotland after spending a semester in New Jersey, where he witnessed the vibrancy of U.S. Catholic students’ faith, McCafferty felt pulled toward the Church.

“I joined the Catholic society during my last year at university and started going to Mass every day,” Deacon McCafferty, 31, from the Archdiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, told the Register.

“I remember reading an article that summer between coming back from the States and going into my last year at university which talked about going to daily Mass and how if you make the time for it, the rest of your day kind of falls into place. I found that to be demonstrably true.”

“That did change my life,” Deacon McCafferty said. “It was the first time I began to really pray and ask God what it was that he might have in store for me.”

After teaching high-school history for two years, his calling became clear: “There was no big voice in the sky, no bright lights or anything — just a small little niggle that didn’t go away and that grew to a certain point where I had to go and explore.” 

Preparing for Ordination Amid the Conclave 

In Rome, the two seminarians studied philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas — Pope Leo XIV’s alma mater — and theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, while living at the Pontifical Scots College in Rome.

After years of study and formation, both had the unique opportunity to witness the final days of the pontificate Pope Francis, attend his funeral, and experience the whirlwind that followed — including the conclave.

With their diaconate ordination scheduled for May 10 and the conclave set to start on May 7, McCafferty shared that they were all “slightly concerned as to what would happen if the conclave ran into the day of the ordination.” 

As Pope Leo XIV’s name was announced on the evening of May 8, they were blessed to gather with families and friends in St. Peter’s Square to witness a day and moment none of them will soon forget.

“We were right up the front, right in the middle,” Deacon Burt said. “I found the whole thing totally surreal. I couldn’t believe that after six years of being in Rome, my family was there to experience that with me. I couldn’t stop crying.”

“It was really touching,” Deacon McCafferty explained. “In the midst of all those thousands of Catholics that were in the square and in Rome, a little group of them was my family. That memory will be with me for a very long time — standing there with family members, witnessing history.”

Ordained Against the Backdrop of Church History

Even though “the conclave and the new Pope was sort of era-defining for the Church,” Deacon McCafferty noted, “we were going through a life changing moment, too.”

“I felt totally overwhelmed by the fact that something that I had thought about, prayed about and dreamed about since I was 10 years old was finally happening,” Deacon Burt added. “The whole experience was quite surreal.”

While “delighted to have reached that point in [his] life,” Deacon McCafferty admitted it was all “a bit of a whirlwind.” 

Reflecting on the “opportunity to be ordained in a papal basilica,” the new deacon emphasized how extraordinary the experience was and the unique connection it offered to the papacy.

“We had just seen the new Pope come out on the loggia two days before, and then we were in St. Paul’s, where, maybe more than any other papal basilica, the presence of the popes is quite in your face. They are all ‘looking down on you’ from those famous mosaics around the walls.”

Shaking Hands With the Pope

After the diaconate ordination, Father Nick Welsh, vice rector of the Scots College, registered the ordinations with the Vicariate of Rome, as required by Church law — confirming that Deacons McCafferty and Burt were the “two first clerics ordained in the Diocese of Rome under the new Bishop of Rome.”

“I texted the vice rector,” Deacon McCafferty said, “and jokingly said, ‘That’s at least worth a handshake from the Pope.’”

To their great surprise, they were blessed to be in attendance when the Pope took possession of St. Paul Outside the Walls. 

Deacon McCafferty looked forward to conversing in English with the U.S.-born born — but then admitted, “I ended up getting a bit too excited and nervous when I got to the moment, and all my rehearsed words completely went out of my head. I just about managed to take his hand, kiss his ring and say: ‘Holy Father, thank you. I’m praying for you.’”

Deacon Burt, however, found himself at ease.

“I was quite surprised that I wasn’t nervous at all,” Deacon Burt said, “partly because I feel like I know him. He is quite grandfatherly, and there is something really gentle and approachable about him. I felt like I could just walk up to him and speak to him. I felt quite peaceful about meeting him.”

“I shook his hand and I kissed his ring and I said to him, ‘Holy Father, just to let you know, Matthew and I were the first to be ordained in the Diocese of Rome under your pontificate,’” he recounted. “And he said, ‘Oh, really? That’s lovely.’ And then I said, ‘Well, it’s a great honor and a privilege for that to be the case, and I assure you that every day I will pray for you.’”

Deacon Burt added, “I got the impression that he really heard what I had said to him.”

Inspired by Pope Leo to Be Missionary-Minded Priests

Deacon Burt will return to Scotland in June to serve in different parishes during the year leading up to his priestly ordination.

Reflecting on the religious landscape in Scotland, Burt explained that, “since COVID, we have seen a huge decline in Mass attendance,” adding, “In my parish, I think something like 60% of people didn’t return after the pandemic.”

“Pope Benedict spoke about the Church getting smaller; and, in a sense, when it gets smaller, it becomes a little bit more apostolic,” he observed. 

“Perhaps we can be missionary disciples, catechizing more and better to smaller groups who can then go out to build up a community. We also need to involve laypeople a lot more because the priests are getting fewer and fewer. I see it as a challenge, but I’m quite encouraged by it as well.”

For Deacon McCafferty, who will remain in Rome for another year to complete his licentiate in canon law, the experience of the universal Church in Rome has been a gift — especially the encounter with the new Holy Father, which he described as “very personally invigorating and life-giving.”

“I think God gives us these moments because it can be quite difficult to remain positive and upbeat in the face of decreasing church attendance and other challenges,” he observed.

“I have found myself to be a little bit more optimistic than I have been in the past,” Deacon McCafferty admitted. “I think that there is a lot of work to be done at home, but you can look at it as having the same opportunity as the disciples had: to talk to people who don’t know Christ.”

“It’s quite appealing to belong to a missionary evangelical Church, to go back not to preserve a status quo or go back to the glory days of Catholicism in Scotland, if they ever existed, but to go back to be a maybe slightly smaller Church, but more apostolic and more evangelical — in the true sense of the word — to be a bit like the early Church, the Church of the apostles. I find that quite an attractive proposition.”

Inspired by Pope Leo’s focus on mission and unity, the new deacons look to their future ministry in Scotland with hope — and feel more connected than ever to Rome and the Pope.

“I am a cleric of the reign of Leo,” Deacon McCafferty said. “And the fact that that happened right after his own election, and that I got to meet him ... I feel a really close connection with him.”

“When he was at St. John Lateran, he said, ‘I’m here to offer you the little that I have and am,’” Deacon Burt observed. “Things start off as small, by doing small things with great love, as St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the patroness of the missions, said. I too really look forward to going home and just offering the little that I have and am.”