Selma’s Rev. Stephen Hornat has been elected to lead the Edmundites.

According to a news release from Saint Michael’s College, Hornat was elected superior general for the Catholic religious order on June 27.

The son of Ukrainian immigrants, Hornat was raised in the Eastern rite Catholic Church, and he said he met the Edmundites when he attended a high school religious retreat with some of the priests at Enders Island in Connecticut in the mid-1960s.

“I fell in love with the community and decided to join,” he said.

After graduating from Saint Michael’s and the Toronto School of Theology, Hornat was posted in Selma, where he was founder and director of the Edmundite Mission Corps, created for new college graduates who want to do mission work.

Hornat has served as pastor of Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Selma since 2011.

At the most recent chapter meeting, Hornat spoke about his priorities as the new superior general.

“The General Chapter has given me a mandate to address the issues of membership and increasing vocations to the consecrated life, our evangelization to those who have been marginalized and to fallen-away Catholics,” Hornat said, “and to further our ministry to the poor and to the African American community in the South.”

Hornat succeeds Michael Cronogue, who led the Edmundites as superior general since 2006.