FR. MARCO PACCIANA

My name is Marco Pacciana. I was born in Bari, Italy in 1975, and I grew up in a small town called Ginosa in the province of Taranto (Puglia). My parents were not particularly devout and I did not receive any real education in the faith, except for going to catechism to receive my sacraments. For this reason, like many young people in Italy, I stopped going to Church as a teenager, before receiving Confirmation. I had other interests in life and was mainly focused on getting a good education. It was also the years immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and my friends and I shared the excitement that swept through Europe, inspired by the dream of universal freedom and peaceful coexistence. We thought that a new era was dawning: the era in which man would finally realize a paradise on earth.

In 1992, while on vacation in Buffalo, N.Y. (USA) to visit relatives, I read a book by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "The Force to Love", where I discovered the message of love for the enemy preached by Christ. This time presented in a concrete, historical town. It opened my eyes: I understood that if Christ had preached this message, it must be God, since no man, not even the greatest of philosophers, had ever spoken of it and because he knew that man cannot love in that dimension with their own strength. After this experience, I went back to practicing my faith, even if it was only at Sunday mass. My relationship with God grew slowly, but it was only two years later, at the age of 19, that I felt the strong need to deepen my relationship with God and asked my pastor for advice. He suggested that I follow the catecheses of the Neocatechumenal Way. Meanwhile, my life had undergone a tremendous change: in November 1993, my mother's clothing store, which she and my uncle had inherited from their father, went bankrupt, and a few months later, in March of 1994, my father suffered a stroke that left him bedridden, no longer able to understand and want (he would finally die in 1998). Besides, my own love life seemed to be a series of disappointments. The following year, 1995, my only brother, who has a physical disability, lost his job as a journalist and had to return home. In a word, my world was completely shattered, and by the end of high school, I found myself with no direction in life. This was the situation I was experiencing when I came across the Neocatechumenal Way, a reality that made me enter the Church through the "main door" and that, after a few years, would have brought about a radical, unexpected and, at that time, unimaginable change in my life. Through the Neocatechumenal Way, I began to realize that God was calling me not only to deepen my relationship with Him, but to live it exclusively. Little by little, God began to rebuild my life and reconcile me with these sufferings. In 1997 in Paris, during a vocational meeting with the initiators of the Neocatechumenal Way, after World Youth Day with the Holy Father John Paul II, I felt that God was calling me to the priesthood.

I began a time of discernment with the help of the team of Catechists of the Neocatechumenal Way responsible for vocations in Puglia. I was struggling a lot with this call, especially since I had a totally different plan in mind for my life: to get married and have a family and children. However, God was stronger than me, my sins and my rebellion.

After three years of alternating moments between accepting and rejecting this vocation, in the year 2000, I finished my studies and obtained a degree in Foreign Languages ​​and Literatures. In September of that year, I was invited to the annual vocational gathering in Porto San Giorgio (Fermo, Italy), carried out by the International Responsible Team of the Neocatechumenal Way. During that retreat, I saw very clearly that God was calling me: the only thing I remember from those four days of intense preaching is a phrase from His Excellency Juan Antonio Reig Pla (then Bishop of Segorbe-Castellón): "Young people, do not be afraid because this is not the story of your fidelity to God, it is the story of God's fidelity to his promises." My last doubts were dispelled, and I gave my name so that they would send me everywhere. I was assigned to the Redemptoris Mater Archdiocesan Missionary Seminary in Kearny, NJ (USA), where I arrived three weeks later. During my seminary years, I helped with the New Evangelization in Israel for one year and in the Pacific Islands (Guam, Hawaii, Saipan, Kiribati) for four years. I was ordained a deacon on May 18, 2010 and served at Holy Family Parish in Nutley, NJ. I was ordained a priest on May 28, 2011 and served as parochial vicar at Our Lady of Good Counsel and Immaculate Conception Parishes in Newark, NJ (2011-2014) and St. Mary's in Plainfield, NJ (2014-2017). On August 1, 2017, I was appointed rector of the Redemptoris Mater Diocesan Missionary Seminary of Bridgeport, in Stamford, CT (USA). Since October 17 of 2022, I am serving as rector at the Redemptoris Mater Diocesan Missionary Seminary "San Pedro Claver" of Esmeraldas in Quito, Ecuador. During all these years, God has shown himself faithful both in taking care of my family and in giving me the best years of my life. Pray for me and for this mission. Dei Gloria.