Teenage years filled with parish activities

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

The charismatic renewal and liberation theology influenced his involvement in the Church in Brazil. As a teenager he helped lead Communion services and start a youth group that monthly spent nights in prayer and days with addicts.
Now Deacon Cleber de Paula is preparing to do more – tomorrow he’s being ordained a priest for the Diocese of Worcester.
His journey included discernment with religious congregations, serious dating and listening to neighbors who’d moved to Massachusetts.
Cleber de Paula Rodrigues was born on April 5, 1982, in Brazil, in the city of Ipatinga in the state Minas Gerais. His parents are Sebastião Rodrigues de Paula and Maria das Graças de Paula. He has two sisters and a brother.
His sister Claudia (de Paula) Valeriano introduced him to the charismatic renewal and the prayer group she attended, when they were teenagers.
“With that, I started going to weekend retreats” led by renewal leaders, and received Catholic formation from them and the parish, he says.
With a bishop’s permission, charismatic renewal leaders formed “new communities” of priests, consecrated lay celibates, single Catholics, married couples and families, he explains. He attended youth retreats organized by the community Cancao Nova (New Song), which had Vatican authorization and once drew a record 100,000 retreatants, he says.
The renewal was “so important to bring the youth back into the Church,” he says. “The personal experience I had with God made me want to become more active” in the parish. His parish was in a cluster of 22 parishes which shared a pastor, associate pastor, and an office, but each had their own church building where Mass was celebrated twice a month. Trained laity led Communion services other Sundays.
Since his parish didn’t have a youth group, when he was about 15, he and a friend started one. The group wanted to focus on things important to their parish and diocese, he says. The charismatic renewal influenced the parish; liberation theology influenced the diocese.
“Usually the charismatic (renewal) is more about prayer and Catholic formation,” Deacon de Paula says. “Liberation theology is very complex. One of the points is being with the poor, the oppressed, and praying with them.”
The youth group adopted elements of both.
“We prayed, then we would go out, asking for food for the people who didn’t have food,” he says.
At least once a month, youth group members spent all night praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, he said. Sometimes they spent an afternoon in prayer on a mountain, which, according to Scripture, is a place for encountering God.
To practice part of liberation theology, the youth spent one day a month at a Catholic alcohol and drug rehabilitation center, praying and sharing faith with residents, Deacon de Paula says. Before going, “we would go out on the streets knocking on doors,” asking for donations of food for the residents.
“It was a beautiful time for us … because we had that experience of serving them,” he recalls. “We would listen to their stories, their struggle to overcome their addiction.”
He also helped lead Communion services at church. As a minister of the word from about age 18 to 20, he read the Gospel and gave a reflection.
“I was feeling that I want to give more and more to the Lord,” Deacon de Paula recalls. “That’s when I realized being a priest would fulfill that.”
In 2002 “I started talking with the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” he says. He’d met members, read their books and listened to their hymns. With them he had a year of discernment, two years of philosophy studies, and six months of postulancy for formation. Then he left.
“I was not sure about my vocation,” he explains. He returned to his parents’ home, his youth group and ministry of the word. Days, he worked; nights he pursued a psychology degree.
“I was dating” for almost a year and a half, he adds. “It helped me to see if I wanted a married life. … I saw that the fire of my vocation was still burning, because I was very involved in the Church, so we decided to break up.”
In 2010 “I started discerning again for the priesthood … with a missionary congregation (the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles, called Scalabrinians) … because I was willing to come to the United States,” Deacon de Paula continues.
He says most Brazilian immigrants in Massachusetts are from his state – Minas Gerais.
“I grew up seeing all these neighbors of mine, acquaintances, … moving” to Massachusetts, he says. Returning for vacation, they told him about life here.
While with the Scalabrinians, he learned of the need for Portuguese-speaking priests in the United States. He joined in mission trips and Masses for migrants in Brazil, a good preparation for work with immigrants in the Worcester Diocese, he says.
He did formation, postulancy, novitiate and philosophy studies with the Scalabrinians. Despite his desire to study in English, they sent him to Colombia for theology studies in Spanish. That “was not fulfilling what I wanted deep in my heart,” he says. So, after a year in Colombia, he left the Scalabrinians.
He also left religious life to discern diocesan priesthood, he says.
“My spiritual life, my community life, was so involved with parish life,” he explains. “As a diocesan priest, I would most likely be working as a pastor or associate pastor.”
He looked into serving in the United States but found that dioceses required prospective seminarians to already be living there, he says.
He returned to his parents’ home, finished his bachelor’s degree in psychology, worked, was a minister of the word, and taught confirmation classes.
A friend, learning of his desire to be a missionary in the U.S., connected him with fellow Brazilian Thiago Da Silva, then a seminarian for the Worcester Diocese, and now associate pastor of St. Stephen Parish and neighboring Holy Family Parish in Worcester (which has a Brazilian community). After ordination, Father de Paula is also to be associate pastor at those parishes.
His countryman in Worcester connected him with Father James S. Mazzone, then the diocese’s vocations director, who did Skype interviews with him. In August 2017 he came to Worcester, took a year of English, then attended St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore.
His parish assignments here were at Our Lady of the Lake, St. Cecilia and St. Leo, all in Leominster, and St. Paul Cathedral, Holy Family and St. Stephen’s in Worcester.
His Masses of Thanksgiving are at 5 p.m. June 18 at Our Lady of the Lake, and 9:30 a.m., in English, and 11 a.m., in Portuguese, June 19 at Holy Family. There will be public receptions after the 5 p.m. and 11 a.m. Masses. He plans to celebrate Mass with his family in Brazil later this month.
“I do not have family here,” he notes, “but I have friends who are so close they are like family.”