As the junior ordained member of the team, Fr. Yong Hoon Joseph Choi brings youthful energy, fluency in three languages and a deep passion for vocations ministry.
Fr. Choi is from the town of Jinhae in southern Korea and joined the Columbans in 1987. He was ordained in 2001. During his seminary formation, he served his mandatory military service in the South Korean army at the demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea. He learned Spanish as a seminarian on his first missionary assignment and after ordination returned to work for seven more years in Chile. For the past two years, Fr. Yong Hoon has been assigned to vocations as well as youth and pastoral ministry with the Korean Catholic community in Los Angeles.
As the junior ordained member of the team, Fr. Yong Hoon brings youthful energy, fluency in three languages and a deep passion for vocations ministry. He is committed to the future of the Columbans. In addition, Fr. Yong Hoon likes to remind us he is the only member with a full head of black hair. His ministry includes leading groups to impoverished areas of the U.S. and international locations to show them a reality unlike their own. We asked Fr. Yong Hoon what drew him to the Columbans and what helps him keep going today in the vocations ministry:
“When I joined the Columbans there was no big attraction to the Society; I was only interested in being a missionary priest. It was only after I was in the formation program for awhile that I saw and learned what the Society did in this world. As Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.’ The Columbans spread out to the whole of the world and lived with the poor people and worked with them.
“There is always hope even in darkness. God has given our Society the vision that is to love each other and serve others. And so looking for vocations gives me hope…I believe that we are going to have new vocations, as many as we had in the past here in the U.S. Region.”
Fr. Yong Hoon’s motto for his ordination, which guides him to this day is “Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth”
(John 17:17).
