Path to the Priesthood Is a Road Less Traveled

The path to priesthood started for Ramon Palomera in the hills of Jalisco, Mexico, led through the Ramona Gardens housing projects in East Los Angeles and continued to a Lincoln Heights mortuary. There, he felt a calling to God.

Brian Castaneda and Jose Bautista heard the same voice.

But on Saturday morning at St. John of God Cathedral in Norwalk the three made up this year’s entire ordination class for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, one of the smallest groups in recent memory.

The ordination of just three men marked a significant drop from last year’s class of 14 Los Angeles seminarians, reflecting the severe shortage of priests to serve the archdiocese’s more than 4 million Catholic believers. Previously, the fewest priests ordained in recent years were the four in 1985, said Father Roberto Juarez of the archdiocese’s office of vocations.

With more young people heading directly to college or seeking employment after high school, church leaders say persuading American-born men and women to join religious vocations is becoming more difficult than ever.

“When you think of the number of priests who are either retiring or dying, we’re not keeping up with the status quo,” said Bishop Gabino Zavala, who assisted in Saturday’s ordination service.

In a ceremony steeped in ritual, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony administered the sacrament, assisted by several bishops robed in white vestments with sky blue skullcaps. In the pews, scores of priests from across the archdiocese, along with family and friends, watched the spiritual transformation, several moved to tears.

For immigrants like Palomera and Bautista, the priesthood has come to represent a road to achieving a higher education and a more fulfilling way of serving their people in a new land. Both Palomera, 33, and Bautista, 32, were born in Mexico. Castaneda, 26, was born in Los Angeles; his parents are from the Philippines.

Nationwide, almost 20% of the seminarians to be ordained priests this year are immigrants, mainly from Mexico and Vietnam, according to a survey released last month by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C. Other immigrants who will enter the U.S. priesthood come from Colombia, Western Europe, Canada, Central America, Africa, Poland, Ireland, the Philippines, South Korea and the Caribbean.

The trend suggests that the priesthood, though struggling to attract more members, is likely to be more representative of the nation’s evolving ethnic makeup.

Juarez also noted optimistically that 80 men are in St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, scheduled to become priests over the next nine years.

But Juarez worried whether the number of U.S.-born Latino priests would keep pace with the surging Latino Catholic population in Los Angeles. None of the 80 seminarians now studying for the priesthood is a U.S.-born Latino, he said, speculating that that is because more Latinos have become educated and upwardly mobile.

“More people are seeking lucrative careers and, of course, being a priest isn’t,” he said, laughing. “But we need to do a better job encouraging U.S.-born men to consider priesthood as a rich way of life.”

According to the national survey, 10% of the U.S. ordinands in 1999 are Latino, a figure higher than in recent years but still a small number when compared to Latinos in the U.S. Catholic population.

The three men ordained Saturday followed different roads to the priesthood.

Palomera worked as a mortuary musician in Lincoln Heights to help his mother support his seven siblings. As funeral director, he performed double duty, consoling grieving families and playing the organ.

Once tempted in the projects by drugs and gangs, Palomera now wants to give other Lincoln Heights teenagers some hope.

“As somebody who came out of the projects, I hope kids will see there is a future for people who live there. I made it out. Now, I’m home,” he said.

Bautista, who dropped out of school at 15 to support his family, said he plans to use his struggles in his ministry with teenagers.

But, for his sister Lorena, the entire scene was too much too handle.

“It’s kind of awkward now,” she said as she watched her brother blessing people. “You feel like he’s not the same guy you used to play around with as a kid. He’s different.”

Castaneda heard a voice within him while studying accounting at USC. A poet, he said his ability to relate to people led him to the priesthood.

Bautista will become a priest at St. Elisabeth Church in Van Nuys. Castaneda will minister at St. Alphonsus in Los Angeles. Palomera is assigned to work at Holy Family Church in Wilmington.