After 10 years as a Catholic priest, I can honestly declare that my priesthood is intertwined with my identity as a religious of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. I am who I am as a man of God because of my union with my religious family and because of my service to this religious family and God’s people as a priest.

After one year of engineering studies, I understood that I needed to move in a different direction to live a fulfilling life. I had been faithful in my church practices into my teen years, so I thought I’d investigate the possibility of a priestly vocation. 

While it seemed a counter-cultural career path in our modern world, the one thought that continued to gnaw at me was that I didn’t want to look back on my life after 50 years and wonder if the priesthood was the right direction for my life. This gave me the courage to attend a diocesan Vocation Awareness session and eventually apply for admission to a diocesan seminary.

During three years of seminary college and another three years of theological studies, I was able to delve into topics about the Catholic Church faith that I could never have imagined. These helped to expand my mind and soul as I desired to figure out how I might to serve God. I was very blessed to be able to interact with other men who similarly were trying to listen to God in their own lives. Some painful moments for me occurred when gifted and holy men whom I perceived would make wonderful priests decided to leave the seminary and not be ordained. This prompted moments of ongoing prayer and discernment so I might grow in respect of the mystery of the life I was seeking to enter.

I had to come to terms with trusting in God deeply when I discerned my own need to leave seminary before ordination. I needed to trust that the God who walked close with me while I was moving toward the priesthood would be the same God who walks close with me – and with the laity – outside the formal path toward priesthood. It was during this time of renewed trust in God that I realized my response to God would be more properly answered as a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

One of the gifts I’ve received in serving as a Sacred Hearts priest has been in sharing in the journeys of many diverse people, particularly in missionary settings. While in the Philippines for religious training I had the experience being a minority for the first time. I learned to cope with uncomfortable feelings of being a guest in another country, and growing to accept areas of prejudice that needed to be converted in my life. I was able to use this appreciation for respecting other people and cultures when I went to the Bahamas as a priest. I was taught by these people to share my ministerial gifts and allow them to train me in their local customs as I grew in priestly experience. I have heard it said that a priest’s first assignment can have an indelible impact on the rest of his priestly ministry. I believe this to be true – and I was gifted with a full and enriching first priestly assignment in the Bahamas.

My experiences in rural ministry in New Mexico gave me an understanding of how people live their faith where ministerial resources are at a premium. And serving the people of God in the Fall River Diocese has shown me a people who strive to remain faithful to God despite the changing landscape of ministerial life. Walking with people in their fears about Church life has helped me cope with my own concerns for emerging changes in our local and universal Church.

Throughout my priestly life I have had to grow in my ability to be adaptable and teachable. I can remember an Easter Vigil in the Bahamas where we had to delay the start of our celebration because an elderly gentleman who was being welcomed into the Church had fallen asleep in his home. This man who had very little in material wealth evangelized our parish family through his witness of trusting in God who was with him throughout his checkered life. A few weeks later he died – and our celebration of his life was one that had deep effects for the growth of our parish.

I could never have imagined the depth of God’s faithfulness to me throughout my life as a religious priest. Though I have had moments of wavering faith and trust, God through God’s people has witnessed to me that any knowledge I have as a Catholic priest pales in comparison to the ways God reminds me that I am never out of God’s sight.

Father Santangelo, ordained in 1999, is pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in New Bedford.