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Brother Wilgintz Polynice, S.D.B., of Spring Valley, professed final vows as a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco.
The Rite of Religious Profession was celebrated during a Mass Aug. 16 in the chapel of the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw. Father Thomas A. Dunne, S.D.B., provincial superior of the New Rochelle Province of the Salesians of Don Bosco, presided and preached.
Thirty-one priests, including many Salesians, concelebrated before a large congregation of Salesian brothers and sisters, Salesian cooperators and just-commissioned Salesian lay missioners. Also attending were the families and friends of Brother Polynice and of Brother Rafael Vargas, S.D.B., who professed first vows.
Brother Wilgintz, 41, was a member of St. Joseph’s parish in Spring Valley before entering the Salesian candidacy program in Orange, N.J., in 2004. He made his first profession as a Salesian in 2007 in Port Chester, where he made his novitiate. Born at Fonds-Parisien, Haiti, he immigrated to the United States in 1998.
He said he was attracted to the Salesians because “they walk with the poor and embrace everyone without discrimination.”
Following his immediate post-novitiate formation in Orange, Brother Polynice did his practical training at the Don Bosco Retreat Center in Haverstraw from 2011 to 2013, then returned to Orange to began theological studies at Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange.
Brother Rafael Ramon Vargas, 22, is a native of Fair Lawn, N.J., and a graduate of Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J. He entered the Salesian candidacy program at Orange in 2010. He did his pre-novitiate year at Holy Rosary parish in Port Chester, 2012-2013, and his novitiate year in Rosemead, Calif., the following year.
