Learn about the path that led Maryknoll Father Rodrigo Ulloa from serving in the U.S. Air Force to serving as a warrior in God’s army.
Translated by Maryknoll magazine staff
(OSV News) — Twenty-one days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Rodrigo Ulloa was aboard a plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean. As a member of the Air Force, he had been deployed to the Middle East for four months and was on his way from Norfolk, Virginia, to the United Arab Emirates.
It was in this context “that I discovered my vocation,” said Father Ulloa.
Amid the members of the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps from across the United States, Ulloa’s gaze turned to a soldier who was reading on the plane. Looking more closely, he noticed a cross sewn onto the left sleeve of the soldier’s uniform and saw that the book in his hands was not just any book, but a Bible. The soldier was a military chaplain and he was praying, Father Ulloa told OSV News.
“He exuded a lot of peace, radiated a lot of peace, and I didn’t feel at peace at that moment,” he said, adding, “So, seeing him so serene, calm, praying, I thought, ‘Wow.’
“That was my first sign.”
The second sign that Father Ulloa received — and which would consolidate his call to the priesthood — came in the final phase of his deployment.
During the four months he lived in the United Arab Emirates, he met the chaplain from the plane, Father David Czartorynski, who, during that time, prepared him for the sacrament of confirmation and invited him to discern his vocation.
A heart ready to join God’s army
When he returned to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, where he was stationed, Father Ulloa gave the base chaplain a sealed letter from Father Czartorynski. The letter stated that Father Ulloa was ready to receive the sacrament of confirmation.
At the end of the note was also written: “Rodrigo wants to be a priest.”
Upon learning of the letter’s contents, Father Ulloa thought: “(Father Czartorynski) saw something in me that I did not see. And if he took the risk of writing it, I will take the risk of believing it.
“So I told the chaplain, ‘Yes, (being a priest) is exactly what I want to be,'” he recounted.
From an early age in his native Guatemala, Father Ulloa grew up in a Catholic environment, both in his family life and at school, where there was daily Mass and where the presence of priests supported the growth of students’ faith.
The son of a salesman and a librarian, Father Ulloa had a very active childhood in which he played many sports, including soccer, volleyball and swimming; he also went on picnics and trips to the beach with his family every month. During vacations, he would visit his maternal grandmother in Florida and his aunts in Virginia, where he was exposed to English and to American culture — which undoubtedly served him well when his family moved permanently to the United States in 1999.
It was a cousin of Father Ulloa’s who was in the Army who encouraged him to enlist in the Air Force, as it could offer him funding for a college career. However, when the time came to decide, he turned to his family, because “if the sacrifices we make are made within a family circle, they make much more sense than if we make them in isolation,” he said.
“It was a family decision — they supported me. And this is important because it would be the same with my vocation,” Father Ulloa noted.
Father Ulloa left the Air Force a very different man from the young man who had arrived in Rapid City, South Dakota, four years and two months earlier. Not only did he have a degree in computer science and was a veteran who had served in the Middle East, but he had also discovered his vocation in the process — a vocation that would lead him to prepare for the priesthood in the Diocese of Rapid City.
However, just as had happened on that decisive trip to the Middle East, the tendency to find signs in the most unexpected places would continue throughout Father Ulloa’s vocational journey.
It was Thanksgiving weekend, and Father Ulloa, who was studying philosophy and theology at Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, was invited by another seminarian to spend
“The word ‘mission’ intrigued me. I felt it was another sign,” he added. “I had already been exposed to travel with the Air Force, to other cultures, and had become familiar with different languages and diverse ways of thinking, so when (the Maryknoll priest) presented the idea of what a missioner was, it fascinated me.”
The then-bishop of the Diocese of Rapid City, now Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, encouraged Father Ulloa to continue cultivating his interest in mission.
After completing the year at Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary, Father Ulloa entered Maryknoll in 2004, studied for a master’s degree in divinity at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and was ordained a priest in 2011.
First steps in mission
His first mission after ordination was in Kathmandu, Nepal, and his second mission was in Taiwan, where he learned Mandarin at a university in Taipei.
It was in Taiwan that, at the request of the Hispanic community, he became the assistant chaplain for scholarship students from various Latin American countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Paraguay. This led Father Ulloa to form a group of young adults called “Pescadores de Luz” (Fishers of Light), and marked his first time ministering to this population.
“We want to see young people involved in their church, whether as volunteers or serving in some other way,” he said. “We want young people to have a deep understanding of what the Church is, of what the Church has to offer.”
His ministry with young people would continue — and expand — when he returned to the United States and became the Maryknoll Society’s director of vocations in 2020. Now this missioner accompanies young men between the ages of 21 and 40 who are in the process of discerning a vocation to the priesthood or brotherhood — supporting them in the process he himself experienced years ago.
During this period of discernment, he said, “we want them to cultivate healthy relationships, we want them to cultivate prayer, values of responsibility.
“We want them to see what their priorities are in this life,” he said. “Mother Teresa always said, ‘Do things with (great) love,’ so we want these young people to do things with great love.”
As he accompanies young people who are discerning a lifelong commitment, Father Ulloa invites them not to be afraid.
“Being where God wants you to be is something we discover gradually, thoughtfully and carefully,” the director of vocations wrote in a reflection for Revista Misioneros, a Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers publication.
He continues to pray “that all young people respond generously to God’s call,” because — as he discovered when he began his journey toward the missionary priesthood — “Jesus guides and sustains us every step of the way.”
Featured image: Father Rodrigo Ulloa, director of vocations for the Maryknoll Society since 2020, distributes Communion. Father Ulloa, who emigrated from Guatemala with his family in 1999, began to discover his priestly vocation during a deployment flight to the United Arab Emirates in 2001, while he was a member of the Air Force. (OSV News/Courtesy of Father Rodrigo Ulloa)
