Becoming a member of the Theatine Fathers was risky business for Father David Arroyo, CR. He had no doubt that God wanted him to be a priest, for he felt that call from a young age. The challenge was in the choice he made.

“I grew up in Torreon, a community of about 735,000 people in the Mexican state of Coahuila, which borders the United States,” Father Arroyo said. “I was a seminarian studying for the diocesan priesthood and felt good about it. I knew that as a priest in Mexico, I would be respected, serve a parish and live a relatively comfortable life.

“But inside, I couldn’t help but feel that if that was how I perceived my calling, I would be missing something. Then one day, someone asked, ‘What if God is calling me to be a missionary?’ That sparked something in me. It opened my eyes, and I began seeing more of the needs of poor children and of people who had migrated to Torreon from elsewhere in South and Central America.

“I realized being a missionary would be a great risk and get me out of my comfort zone, but it was a risk I was prepared to take. Then a friend who is a Theatine invited me to spend some time with him in Colorado, where the Theatines had their only mission in the United States. 

“Seeing what his order was doing there made me want to be a Theatine, so I abandoned my plans of being a diocesan priest and joined the order. And now, my Theatine friend is back in Torreon, where I had been.”

Father Arroyo grew up as the youngest child in a family that included one brother and six sisters. His parents, the late Victor and Amelia Arroyo, were teachers in the Mexican equivalent of high school.

“They came to Torreon, which is in northern Mexico, from the south of Mexico, where the practice of the faith is very different,” he said. “While the Church’s role is very obvious in the south, it’s kind of quiet in the north. My family didn’t want to lose the faith, so they made sure to send all eight of us children to Catholic school.

“I started as an altar server at about 5 years old and began feeling even then that God wanted me to be a priest. That feeling grew all through elementary school, so when I graduated from there, I started attending high school in the Torreon diocesan seminary.”

After completing college with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the seminary, Father Arroyo was sent to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 2018 to earn a licentiate in sacred theology. He remained in Rome for a while because of the COVID pandemic after completing his studies there, then was ordained in Mexico on July 16, 2021 by Bishop Juan Munoz of Guadalajara.

He served in Guadalajara for a year, then came this past July with two other Theatines – Father Victor Mendez, CR, and Father Salvador Cisneros, CR – to live at Columbus Christ the King Church and serve the Latino Catholic community throughout the Diocese of Columbus.

They join Father Tomas Carvahal, CR, who has been parochial vicar at Dover St. Joseph Church since July 2021. The four are the first Theatines to serve outside the Archdiocese of Denver and the Diocese of Pueblo in Colorado since the order left New York more than 100 years ago.

The order, officially known as the Congregation of Clerics Regular, was founded in 1524 by four men including St. Cajetan and Archbishop Giovanni Pietro Carafa of Theate, Italy, the city from which the order derives its unofficial name. The archbishop later became Pope Paul IV.

As of 2020, the Theatines had 161 members, of whom 124 are priests. They serve in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Netherlands and Spain. “Our duty is to be a light and example of priestly life. Any mission, occupation or priestly ministry is our mission as well. Charity is what drives all of our actions,” the order’s website says. Its motto is “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)

“We are a relatively small order but one with much diversity in where we serve, and we do much work with young people. Being in Ohio adds to our diversity,” Father Arroyo said.  

The three Theatines at Christ the King, where Father David Schalk, diocesan vicar for Hispanic ministry, is pastor, are doing most of their work outside that parish. They help at Columbus St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Peter, St. Mary, Mother of God, St. Stephen the Martyr and St. Agnes churches and Newark Blessed Sacrament church throughout the week and make the 200-mile round trip to Portsmouth Holy Redeemer and St. Mary churches for weekend Masses.

“Father Schalk coordinates us,” Father Arroyo said. “If he needs something done, we go where the need is. We are a three-priest team rotating among parishes with large Latino populations. Our assignment is to do this work for one year, then we will see what happens.” 

Father Arroyo also serves as chaplain of Cristo Rey Columbus High School and is a teacher in the Pontifical College Josephinum’s school of theology. “My duty is to teach faith-related subjects, but to me it’s just as important to serve in an unofficial way as a teacher of the culture of the faith, especially the one in which I grew up,” he said.

“In my short time in Ohio, I’ve found a real hunger for God among students and adults, as well as great gratitude for what they have and for we priests who have come from elsewhere as missionaries to serve them.

“I hope I can be like St. Cajetan, our order’s co-founder,” Father Arroyo said. “He had a pretty easy job, working as a priest who was a lawyer for the Roman Curia. But he felt it wasn’t enough. He felt the Church needed reform, so he and his three friends took a big risk and founded a new order that set an outstanding example in its time. Priests today are risk-takers in the same way as they challenge the prevailing way of thinking.

“To those wondering where we are headed, I respond with my favorite Scripture verse, John 6:68. That is where Simon Peter says to Jesus, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’”