Brazilian to become priest calls Worcester home

By Tanya Connor |  The Catholic Free Press

“Are you going home?” people sometimes ask Deacon Thiago Rodrigues Ibiapina.
“I’m not going home,” replies the native Brazilian preparing to be a priest for the Diocese of Worcester. When traveling to Brazil “I’m going to visit my parents. My home today is here. … That’s my Church.”
Deacon Ibiapina is to be ordained by Bishop McManus on June 18 at St. Paul Cathedral, along with another Brazilian, two Colombians and three local men.
But how did he get here? To tell his story, Deacon Ibiapina, an author, goes back to his childhood.
Son of Raimundo Nonato Ibiapina and Maria Alzenir Rodrigues DeOliveira, he was born Aug. 10, 1993, in Fortaleza, the capital city of the state of Ceará in northeastern Brazil, where he went to church and school.
“I was born and raised in a Catholic family,” he says. He was an altar server, his mother was a lector, and his brother still plays music at Holy Trinity Parish in Fortaleza. His father and sister attend Mass too.
“When people ask me, when is the moment of my calling, I don’t have an answer,” Deacon Ibiapina says. “I always wanted to be a priest.”
Asked why, he says, “Because I was raised in the Church. I saw the priests in my parish and wanted to do what they did.” He watched them, contemplating what they were doing. When he was in high school one of them asked if he was thinking about priesthood. He said he was.
So after graduating from Liceu Domingos Brasileiro High School in 2010, he entered seminary for the Archdiocese of Fortaleza. A language-lover, he took a year of linguistics at Universidade Federal do Ceara, where he was part of a study group about Edith Stein from 2012-2015.
Also in 2012 he started studies at Faculdade Catolica de Fortaleza, where he got his bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 2015.
As part of his study he took a one-year seminar at the Pontifical Catholic University in Brazil about the spirituality of Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), a German Jew and philosopher who became a Christian, entered the Carmelites and died in Auschwitz in 1942.
Deacon Ibiapina’s book, called in English, “Spirit: An Analysis of the Human Person according to Edith Stein,” was published in Portuguese in 2017 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He hopes to translate the book into English someday.
Asked about his interest in this saint, Deacon Ibiapina explains, “I was first fascinated with John Paul II. We all know we didn’t come out of the blue. … What made John Paul II be John Paul II in his thinking, in his writing? One of the authors he read was Edith Stein.” She was a heavyweight in his life. So, Deacon Ibiapina read her writings himself and loved what she wrote.
He says he has written chapters for other books, and articles and poems published online or in academic journals.
“I don’t have a lot of hobbies,” he says. He likes reading, writing and listening to classical music as he writes. He also likes walking outdoors.
While in seminary, Deacon Ibiapina says, he met a man from another seminary: Thiago Da Silva. They became friends and “made jokes because we have the same name.”
In 2015 his friend came to Massachusetts to discern a priestly vocation in the Worcester Diocese and is now associate pastor of Holy Family and St. Stephen parishes in Worcester.
Deacon Ibiapina’s friend called him several times that year, urging him to come here too to prepare for the priesthood. Seminarian Da Silva had told Father James S. Mazzone, then the diocesan vocations director, about the other Thiago back in Brazil.
Deacon Ibiapina says he was very hesitant to come, since he did not speak English. He thought he’d have to go directly to seminary without language skills. Then he learned that the diocese sent men like him to study English first.
Deacon Ibiapina spoke with Father Mazzone by Skype a few times, with translation help from Father Mateus Souza, a Brazilian priest in the Worcester Diocese.
“And then I finally said ‘yes’” to Bishop McManus’ invitation to come here, Deacon Ibiapina recalls. “And then we started the whole immigration process, which is another story.” He arrived in 2016.
He studied English at Clark University, while living at Holy Name of Jesus House of Studies for seminarians. Then he went to St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore. (He was to receive his master of divinity and bachelor of sacred theology degrees from St. Mary’s yesterday.)
In 2020 he got his licentiate in philosophy from Faculdade Euclides da Cunha, which he started in Brazil and finished online here.
 “I’m not saying I never had problems,” Deacon Ibiapina says, adding that homesickness is normal. “I do miss my parents, but I see God working … I learned English in a year and a half … I’m very well adapted with the language and living in the United States.”
God has been so good to him, he says. And, he says, “I’m very grateful for what the diocese has done (for) me.”
Asked about his hopes, Deacon Ibiapina says simply, “To help with the sacraments – Masses, confession. … My hope is just be a good priest.”
While his family in Brazil can’t come to his ordination, they plan to watch the Mass online, and he hopes to go there afterwards to celebrate Masses, he says. Cousins and priest friends from New Jersey plan to come to his ordination, at which Father Da Silva is to vest him.
 His Masses of Thanksgiving here are at 4 p.m. June 18 at St. John Paul II Parish’s Notre Dame Church in Southbridge and at 10 a.m. June 19 at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Winchendon, both with public receptions following.