Santa Ana Native Named Rector of Camarillo Seminary

Father Rafael Luevano, a native of Santa Ana and former associate pastor of St. Joachim Parish in Costa Mesa, has been appointed rector and president of St. John’s Seminary College in Camarillo.

The college educates men for the Roman Catholic priesthood in six dioceses and one religious order in the Western United States. Luevano has served as the college’s director of spirituality for 14 months.

The appointment was announced Wednesday by Archbishop Roger M. Mahony in Los Angeles.

Luevano’s appointment “is a great tribute to his own qualifications and reflects very favorably the quality of our clergy in the Church of Orange,” said Bishop Norman F. McFarland of the Diocese of Orange in a statement.

“I am delighted with the assignment, which will serve the whole church, even though it means that we will have to do without Father Luevano’s more immediate service in the Diocese of Orange for some time,” McFarland said.

Luevano said in a statement that his appointment “signals a new accord” between the Orange and Los Angeles diocese “and is a decisive step in making St. John’s the regional seminary for the entire Southwest.”

Luevano attended Immaculate Heart of Mary Elementary School and Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana. He was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Orange in 1981.