A new shepherd for a big flock

Alejandro Trejo is the new Hispanic priest at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church

MOSES LAKE — Alejandro Trejo was born and raised in Mexico. He spent more than two thirds of his 33 years there.

As a Mexican, news from his countrymen and relatives are never far from his heart. Just recently, he became an uncle one more time.

As a man of faith, the name on the cover of the passport does not matter as much.

"You can be from Guatemala, Chile, or El Salvador," he said. "But I find only one faith."

As the new Hispanic priest at Our Lady of Fatima, he will overlook a flock that includes people from all those nations, and more.

Trejo praises the work of his predecessors, Felipe Pulido and Jorge Granados, yet, the faithful may never have been in safer hands.

After all, the vocation of service runs in his family, as one of his nine siblings is a nun of the order of the Serfs of Saint Margaret, Mary and The Poor, in Mexico.

Trejo started his quest for priesthood 14 years ago at the Priesthood Formation Institute of the Archdiocese of Mexico. There, he studied philosophy and theology.

His friendship with a priest named Felix Rodriguez from Washington state allowed him to come for vacation in the late 1990s. Here, he was made aware of the need for bilingual and Hispanic priests, and decided to continue his studies in the U.S.

"I left the seminary with the intentions of entering an American seminary," he said.

Fresh from the Mexican seminary, Trejo, and two of his fellow students, Alberto Magana and Gustavo Gomez, decided to make the trek up north. Magana was until a two months ago the priest in Sunnyside and Gomez is now the pastor at Benton City.

After a year of English as a Second Language at Heritage College in Toppenish, a four-year stay at the Saint Patrick Seminary of Menlo Park, Calif., followed, where he earned his Master's Degree.

Finally, in 2003, the Holy Family church in Yakima, was the site where he was ordained as a deacon in January and as a priest in May. Sunnyside was his first parish, and he stayed there for a year, and in Ellensburg for three months.

Three weeks into his stay in Moses Lake, Trejo reflects on the differences between the two flocks.

"It filled me with experiences," he said. "Each parish is different and you have to do your ministry in different ways."

Sunnyside is the home of farms and fields, with high blue-collar and Hispanics populations. Ellensburg is home of Central Washington University, the white-collar quotient was higher and the number of Hispanics was lower.

"Sunnyside was 85 percent Hispanic," Trejo said. "Ellensburg had fewer Hispanics and more professionals. Here in Moses Lake, it's 50-50."

In the land of 50-50, Trejo hopes to work with young people from both cultures, he said, as well as spreading the word of God in hospitals.

"It's a way to take the word to whom needs it most,” he said. "I hope to give the best of myself and serve the best way I can."

Trejo's arrival to Moses Lake was part of a larger shuffling of posts among the Archdiocese of Yakima. His predecessor in this city, Fr. Felipe Pulido took over the parish in Cashmere, replacing Fr. Ricardo Villarreal, who moved to Sunnyside to replace Trejo's fellow traveler Magana, who took a sabbatical.

Trejo was called from Ellensburg to fill in for Magana until Villarreal could take over. Once Magana arrived, Trejo's stay in Ellensburg came to an end, as he was assigned to come to Moses Lake.

As a pastor in Moses Lake, Trejo will also say Mass in the All The Saints Parish in Warden. He is no stranger to this duality, given that while he was in Ellensburg, he was also the priest for Cle Elum and Roslyn.

His time as a priest has coincided with some of the toughest times faced by the Catholic Church as an institution in recent memory. Trejo said that the controversy regarding sexual abuse by priests that has resulted in several of them being prosecuted was a time to "purify the church.

"We had to show people that those were only a few and that there are many of us who can give an example of the faith we preach," he said.

He remains optimistic in the future of the Catholic Church, accusations and defrockings nonetheless.

"We are going forward," he said. "I have seen more people convert to Catholicism in recent years."

Although most of his work will involve preaching and sharing with Hispanics, Trejo will work with American youth as well, particularly during the Teen Life services on weekends.

Nevertheless, the bulk of his ministry will take place among Latinos, which is no unimportant task to Trejo.

Faith, he said, is important to Latinos as it unites them.

"Being Latino means to have faith," he said. "I almost never have met a Latino without faith. It's part of the culture and of our being."