Being a priest in La Paz (Bolivia) is a gift for the faithful of the country. This young priest is in the second year of a Licentiate in Theology, with a specialization in Liturgy, at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (PUSC) in Rome.
In October 2024, during the annual meeting of benefactors of the CARF Foundation in the Eternal City, he had the opportunity to share his testimony with pilgrims and benefactors, as well as celebrate a Mass for them.
Manuel was able to study at PUSC and live at Altomonte School, thanks to a grant funded by the CARF Foundation, an invaluable support for his diocese, which is going through serious difficulties.
Being a priest, a call that he felt amidst doubts
Don Manuel tells us how his vocation matured, a call that he felt amidst the doubts and tasks of any young person in the world. “I come from a very religious family, in which I was educated with a lot of love. I remember very well that since I was little, my sister and I were taken to Mass, catechism classes, and different parish activities in which we liked to participate constantly,” he says.
Like most young people in Bolivia, he thought about what would become of his life, what he was going to study, where he was going to work or live. But there was something else, a doubt that had to be resolved: “Could I be a priest?”
Don Manuel Guzmán Murguía tells us that these doubts increased when he participated in the pastoral activities of his school. These activities made him feel a lot of peace, and he noticed an immense joy when talking about God with other friends, about wanting to be good or improve his way of being.
«When I graduated from high school I had to decide what to do with my life, so I entered the university to study Accounting, but even with that decision, I felt empty. I didn’t feel happy, and many other options came to my mind, but something that resonated strongly was the idea of being a priest.»
Manuel prayed a lot to know what to do, and thanks to the support of his family, friends and his community, he was able to hear the voice of the Lord, leaving everything to enter the seminary. «Thanks to the people who guided me: priests and lay people, I knew that the only way to know if God was calling me was, through deep discernment, to enter the desert to see my own life.»
With fears and uncertainty, he spent his time in the seminary, growing his vocation thanks to his trainers, his seminarian brothers, as well as the different experiences that have made him mature in the vocation that God had for him.
The pastoral complexity of Bolivia
During his training, Don Manuel learned firsthand the profound work that his diocese carries out thanks to the work of priests, religious and lay people in the different apostolates. The archdiocese of La Paz has 10,975 km², and has 53 parishes and approximately 50 priests. “The current reality of my diocese is the lack of priests, since La Paz is a city with many inhabitants and an intercultural mix with different social, political and religious realities,” he tells us.
His diocese serves in the midst of a scarce economic reality, with people who work from dawn to dusk to bring bread to their homes. Most people in La Paz live off informal businesses, hard and temporary jobs. Parishes survive with the little help that the faithful can give and thanks to aid from foundations and benefactors who help to continue spreading the Gospel despite material limitations.
«During the last stage of my training I was given the task of promoting vocational ministry for our seminary and accompanying young people who feel a concern for priestly life, an apostolate that always led me to qualify my vocation.»
A mission in the capital of Bolivia
After the discernment process, on the Solemnity of St. Joseph in 2021, Don Manuel received the diaconate, a ministry where God led him to be configured with the missionary face of the Church. «The Bishop then entrusted me with the direction of the Pontifical Mission Societies, a pastoral ministry that I did not expect, but necessary to live the ecclesial reality firsthand.»
The mission that is carried out in the diocese is one of re-evangelization, since many people have been baptized, but do not live their Christian life, or are very far from the Church. The reality of poverty can also be seen in the most remote places of the diocese.
The mission is carried out through people who voluntarily promote spaces of faith in people’s daily lives: visiting families, praying in the squares, doing charity, forming families in small communities, etc.
Manuel Guzmán was ordained a priest on the day of the Immaculate Conception in 2021. Certainly, the Ministry has given me undeserved happiness, but it has also made me take up the Cross of the Lord. Despite telling the Lord like the centurion “I am not worthy that you enter my house” he noticed me at my young age, in my inexperience and in my weaknesses.
Being a priest to train future priests
In his first years as a priest, Don Manuel’s bishop appointed him as a trainer in the seminary, a challenging task for his young ministry. “During that time I was helping the seminarians to discern their vocation, facing a reality where the shortage of seminarians makes it a more personalized formation,” he tells us.
Unfortunately, due to the shortage of clergy, many priests have not been able to access a study that qualifies them for training in their diocese, and that is why their bishop made the decision to send him to Rome to study, in order to be able to better serve his diocese with the help of the CARF Foundation.
«Specifically, my bishop sent me to study Liturgy, so that later, God willing, I can teach everything I have learned and enrich the celebratory dimension of my diocese. It is a challenge that I take on from the hand of God so that He may give me the wisdom to be able to learn in the best way possible everything I can.»
The experience in Rome, and in particular at the University of the Holy Cross, is a wonderful experience for Don Manuel Guzmán Murguía, who studies and meets wonderful people. But also from the heart of the Church, he is in communion with the Pope, further increasing his faith and his vocation.
Thanks to the CARF Foundation
Don Manuel is very grateful to the CARF Foundation and would like to express his gratitude: “None of this would be possible without the generous help of the benefactors who made my training project possible, and also to the Opus Dei fathers who offer their spiritual accompaniment and friendship. Know that you are always in my prayers and my Eucharists, may God bless you and give you back a hundredfold.”
