When Deacon Carlos Mauricio Portillo first applied for seminary years ago, Bishop Paul S. Loverde asked him why he wanted to be a priest. “My answer was, because I want to be an instrument of God’s mercy for my brothers and sisters through the sacraments,” he said. “It’s still the same. When I look at my future ministry, I just want to be an instrument of mercy.”
Deacon Portillo was born June 25, 1986, in San Miguel, El Salvador, to Dinora and Victor Portillo, the oldest of their two boys. The family lived with his extended family on a property with three houses. Growing up, he attended the local public school, played a lot of soccer with his friends and worked on a coffee plantation with his family. Faith was a big part of their lives, including Mass at 6 a.m. every Sunday.
When he was 15, his best friend became Protestant and invited Deacon Portillo to his church. He considered joining and decided that if he did, he would want to be a pastor. But he remained Catholic and the next year he attended a retreat with his youth group. “During holy hour, one of the catechists told us that he would pray that one of us would think about the priesthood,” said Deacon Portillo. The feeling that he was called to the priesthood has been with him ever since.
When he was 18, Deacon Portillo moved with his aunt and cousins to Manassas. “We already had family there. It was an adventure,” he said. He moved around Northern Virginia and volunteered with the Hispanic communities of nearby parishes. Following high school and a short time at community college, he entered seminary in 2014.
Deacon Portillo studied at the Universidad Eclesiástica San Dámaso in Madrid before attending the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he studied at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (also known as the Angelicum). In Spain, he was able to speak his native language and visit the town of Portillo, near Ávila. But Rome was special, too. “It’s just the heart of the church,” he said. He was ordained to the diaconate in Rome Sept. 30.
After his priestly ordination, he will be parochial vicar of Christ the Redeemer Parish in Sterling. He’s looking forward to teaching the faith, especially to teens. “It was my experience when I was in my teen years that I had many questions, like why am I Catholic and not Protestant, why do we believe in the Eucharist?” he said. “I was struggling with these questions and the people who were in charge of my youth group helped me to navigate through these complicated questions.”
