Baltimore native to be ordained Jesuit priest

Baltimore native Deacon Juan Pablo Ruiz is one of four Jesuits of the USA Central and Southern Province (UCS) who will be ordained to the priesthood June 11, 2022, in St. Louis, Mo.

Deacon Ruiz and his fellow UCS Jesuits – Deacons Thomas A. Croteau, David A. Kiblinger and Jonathon E. Polce – are among the 17 Jesuits to be ordained in the United States, Canada and Haiti this year, according to a news release from the Society of Jesus.

St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, a former auxiliary bishop of Baltimore, will preside at the sacred liturgy of ordination at St. Francis Xavier College Church.

Deacon Ruiz was born in Baltimore to a Cuban father and Dominican mother, but raised in Memphis, Tenn. He is, he says, “Hispanic by nature and American by nurture,” a heritage that has prepared him well for ministry as a Jesuit of the USA Central and Southern Province, which includes Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and other states with large numbers of Hispanics, according to the news release.

Deacon Ruiz earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at St. Louis University; a master’s degree in social philosophy from Loyola University Chicago; and a master of divinity from Regis College, University of Toronto. He will spend his first year after ordination as an assisting priest at the Gesú Church in Miami.

The Jesuits are a Roman Catholic order of priests and brothers founded nearly 500 years ago by St. Ignatius of Loyola. With more than 15,000 priests, scholastics and brothers worldwide, they are the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church. 

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