Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory ordained two new Franciscan priests, Father Juan de la Cruz Turcios and Father Javier Del Angel De Los Santos, during a May 29 Mass St. Camillus Church in Silver Spring, Maryland. The ceremony marked the first time that Cardinal Gregory as the archbishop of Washington ordained two friars from the Franciscans’ Holy Name Province to the priesthood. The two new priests are both from Latin America.

During the ordination, both were presented to the cardinal and were applauded by the faith community in a sign of joyful welcoming.

“On a day like today our joy is greater than usual. Today's joy for the Franciscan family comes from seeing two of its brothers achieve a dream. Franciscans today feel the joy of growing (as a family),” Cardinal Gregory told the two friars, their families and friends and more than 500 viewers on the St. Camillus' YouTube channel.

The cardinal said the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi filled St. Camillus Church that day “as his religious family continues to pursue holiness and the generous spirit of service that has blessed us for eight centuries.”

“Our Church,” he said, “rejoices in having two new priests.”

Speaking about the call to serve God, the cardinal emphasized that God’s grace is always working in human nature and is molded at home and in families.

He thanked the Franciscans for the opportunity to ordain two priests to serve the whole Church.

In his homily, Cardinal Gregory spoke about vocations to the priesthood.

“Most families are not aware of what specifically they can do to encourage a vocation. Our family environment represents a profound and lasting influence for our entire lives. In our home we learn the first lessons of life, such as to love and to receive love. We learn forgiveness as well as discipline, honesty and truth,” the cardinal said, thanking the parents, siblings, and other relatives of the two friars. “Thank you for helping them learn these life lessons. Continue to reassure your love for them and your insistence that they practice all the qualities of Christian excellence that you have sought to teach them.”

Drawing on the Gospel, the archbishop told those being ordained about the friendship that Christ established with his apostles. "It does not mean that there will always be perfect agreement and harmony with the priestly community or with their superiors… It is a friendship that allows for disagreement and friction without breaking down. It is built on knowledge and trust.” The cardinal added that, “Christ invites us priests to enjoy a personal friendship with him, based on a deep and constant dialogue that we must maintain through prayer and our sacramental ministry.”

He told them they must be united in heart and spirit for this journey that begins in Christ.

‘I wanted to wear a friar’s habit’

The prayer of St. Francis of Assisi begins with the words, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” This is precisely what Father Juan de la Cruz Turcios said he wishes to be. "There is much to give to the community. That is why I want to be an instrument of peace, an instrument that connects God with the people,” said the new priest, who is 41.

“When you give to the community, you receive as well. You are filled with grace, because it is by giving that we receive God's grace,” he said. The Franciscan priest said he wants to be a bridge that helps, that connects and guides people, that leads people to know God, not only through the sacraments but also through actions.

Father Juan de la Cruz Turcios is a native of a coastal area in Canton Valle Afuera, a district in the city of Pasaquina, La Union Department, El Salvador. He describes his childhood as very interesting. “I was born one day after the assassination of St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero (in March 1980), at the beginning of the civil war that went on for 12 years. I am the youngest of five siblings. My father went to live in Houston, Texas, when I was 2 years old, and I grew up with my mother and my paternal grandfather," he said in an interview with El Pregonero, the Spanish language community newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington.

They were poor and subsisted on the money their father sent them from the United States. “The remittances made a big difference. My father bought land and built a house and we moved in. In 1986, he was granted permanent residency and finally returned to El Salvador,” said Father de la Cruz Turcios, remembering the joy of every Christmas when his father arrived.

It was his grandfather, Silverio, who transmitted the Catholic faith to him, he said, explaining, “We prayed, went to church and even had an altar at home with the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Virgin of Guadalupe. A candle was always lit there.”

He felt the call to serve the Lord when he was seven years old, during a procession in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where boys were dressed as Juan Diego and girls were carrying baskets with fruits. Juan wanted to wear the friar’s habit and that was a first sign.

“The idea of becoming a priest was not far away, because I have always been involved with the church,” he said.

He used to participate in youth groups and was the leader of youth ministry in his Salvadoran parish.

Accompanied by his mother and siblings, the future priest arrived in the Washington, D.C., area in 1997, where his father had relocated in search of a better life.  

The first church that welcomed him, upon his arrival as an immigrant, was St. Camillus, where he was ordained 24 years later as a Franciscan priest.

And it was at St. Camillus where he started the “Esperanza Latina” group, under the leadership of a Franciscan friar. That group helped him meet other young Catholics and learn more about the work of the Franciscan friars in that part of Maryland. Also, he met some theology students there. That group became a driving force in helping him decide on his vocational path.

“It has been a process of discernment that took quite some time. Franciscan spirituality has always captured my attention. Besides, there is a great need for priests in our Hispanic community, so that inspired me to want to become a friar,” said the newly ordained priest.

In 2002, after high school, when he was 21 years old he went to live with the friars for an entire year to learn about the Franciscan way of life in New York. He studied his second novitiate year in Delaware. At the conclusion of his novitiate he took simple vows and became a friar. His third year was spent at Holy Name College near St. Camillus Church.

All of his life he has been immersed in faith and books. He graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in art history.

The future priest worked in pastoral ministry at a church in New Jersey before beginning his philosophy and theology studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Before being ordained a transitional deacon, he also served in Indiana. 

"We are all called, we all have a vocation," said Father de la Cruz Turcios, acknowledging that his calling has been to work with and serve the people, with St. Francis of Assisi as a model.

He recognizes that there is a great need for sacramental work. "Our people bring everything they have to the USA: music, food, family, but we forget about our faith and how to instill it into our children,” he said.

He also believes that it is important to reinforce the importance of the priesthood because “that will help us to put more Hispanics at the altars to help with sacramental life.”

At his ordination, Father Juan de la Cruz Turcios wore a chasuble that belonged to Franciscan Father Chris Posch, St. Camillus’ pastor who died in July 2020 after serving his community during the COVID-19 pandemic. “He has been an inspiration in my vocation,” the new priest explained. “I admired his passion for working with people. Also, his humility and simplicity. All that is valuable to me, and that’s why I wanted him to be present at my ordination.”

‘Come and see!’

Father Javier Del Angel De Los Santos worked for 13 years in the corporate world in organizational development, change management, and professional training in Canada, Mexico, the United States and South Korea. In 2010, he spent a year in Israel and Italy studying biblical archaeology, exegesis and theology. That same year, he founded the Xaire Center for Biblical Studies in Mexico City, with a focus on teaching, training and research in biblical studies.

He joined the Franciscan Holy Name Province in 2013 because he wanted to make a radical change in his life to dedicate himself to serving Christ.                              

“You just have to read the Gospels! Jesus did not call the most perfect men to follow him, or the most intelligent, or the most qualified, or the most virtuous, or the most holy. He called whomever he wanted! Once they followed him, they learned where he lived, how he lived, with whom he shared his life and his ministry. Then, in that closeness to Jesus they discerned and discovered the great project of life and happiness that God had for them. Jesus keeps doing the same today: he calls whomever he wants wherever they are. Is he calling you? Come and see!,” he told El Pregonero.

Father De Los Santos, a native of Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, graduated from the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas with a degree in communications. Then he completed a master's degree in that field and in socio-cultural studies at ITESO, a Jesuit university in Guadalajara.

After making his first vows in 2015 and later his solemn profession as a Franciscan in 2019, the future priest lived at St. Anthony's Shrine in Boston, where he is studying at Boston College for his master's degree in divinity and teaching Sacred Scripture. Javier also taught Sacred Scripture at the Institute for Pastoral Studies of Loyola University in Chicago (2017-2018). In April 2020, he was ordained a transitional deacon.

Now, the opportunity he has of sharing his priestly ordination and first Eucharist with the people of St. Camillus is a blessing for him, he said.

He has a long and deep personal and ministerial relationship with St. Camillus Parish and its people, where he served for three years. In 2013-2014 he worked at St. Francis International School in Silver Spring, which is located on the St. Camillus Parish grounds and is cosponsored by that parish. Then he started a Spanish-language Bible study group in the Archdiocese of Washington and completed a year-long internship there from 2018-2019.

“I feel as if the people of St. Camillus adopted me as their son, and I adopted them as my family,” he said. And the new priest said he was happy to celebrate and share his ordination with the St. Camillus community.

As for his personal plans, he said that by the end of August, he will depart for Rome, where he will study for a doctorate in Biblical Theology at the Gregorian University.

Father De Los Santos operates a YouTube channel in Spanish called “Verbum Dei'’” which means “The Word of God” and focuses on Spanish biblical studies, biblical catechesis and other biblical material. People interested in subscribing to the YouTube can go to: youtube.com/verbumdeiofm.