Steve Garza, the new priest at St. Peter Catholic Church in The Dalles, comes to the parish after a 35-year career in the U.S. Forest Service.
His unusual route to the priesthood began after his wife, The Dalles native Maria (Nelson) Garza, died of gastric cancer in 2010.
Maria was the love of his life, and he knew he would never marry again. A call he’d felt in his childhood asserted itself again: he was drawn to the priesthood.
Once he was a widower — he was in Hermiston then — he rejoined the church and became an active member of the Our Lady of Angels parish.
“Maybe not even a year after she died, I knew that Jesus wanted me to be a priest,” Garza said. “And at first I asked him, ‘I’m too old, aren’t I?’ I think I was 51 or 52 at that point. I just knew I needed to pursue it.”
He approached the Jesuits, who told him he was indeed too old. (Their cutoff age is 50 to be a priest.) Then Bishop Liam Cary, who oversees the Baker Diocese that includes a parish in The Dalles, accepted Garza’s vocation into the priesthood.
Garza entered Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Massachusetts, which specializes in “second career” priests. “I call them retreads,” Garza joked.
His fellow seminarians came from every career imaginable, Garza said. They also had other things in common. His best friend in seminary was also a widower.
“We decided our wives were in cahoots. They’re no longer our wives but we have a strong connection to them. Because in Heaven Jesus said people aren’t married. Everybody understands and loves each other perfectly there,” Garza said.
During summers in seminary, he came back to the Baker Diocese to work in different parishes. He always enjoyed serving in the community and “taking care of people spiritually.”
He ministers to those who already have a close relationship with God, and, he said, “you can help others who are distant from him maybe get closer.”
Garza grew up Catholic in Texas, and by middle school he seriously considered being a priest. But his parents divorced, and his life took a different path. He moved to California with his mom and his siblings and by college he quit going to church.
His forest service career, which he served in California and Oregon, ranged from fighting fire, replanting and cultivating forests, to planning and administration timber sales. He got his master’s degree in forest biology and worked in forest ecology and fire ecology. At the end of his career, he was in fire management.
He didn’t practice the faith during his marriage. And while he wanted children, his wife didn’t. He decided to go along with what she wanted, and they didn’t have kids.
He’s been told that his marriage gives him insight when working with married couples in the church, but he demurs. “That’s not to say other priests couldn’t do what they need to do. But yes, it definitely is different and brings a different life experience.”
He celebrates the Mass in Spanish and tries to speak it well “because it’s my descent, it’s my heritage.” He can trace his roots to Mexico and Europe.
His new parish is familiar stomping grounds to Garza. He and his wife visited The Dalles regularly. “I’ve always liked it here.”
And as for his new life in the priesthood, he said, “I would safely say it’s not a like, it’s a love. The whole life of being a priest.”
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