The Archdiocese of Chicago welcomed two new priests on May 17. Both men are from Chicago and will take up their new assignments July 1. Learn about them here, and join Chicago Catholic in congratulating them. 

Father Cristian Garcia, 33

First assignment: St. Clare of Assisi, Rolling Meadows and Mount Prospect

Born in: Chicago

Education: Woodbine and Columbus West schools, Unity Junior High and Morton East High School, all in Cicero; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary

First Mass: Our Lady of Czestochowa and Charity Parish, Cicero

Father Cristian Garcia has always loved languages. Growing up in St. Mary of Czestochowa Parish in Cicero, he often was an altar server at Polish funerals, and was able to learn the Polish Mass responses. In college, he studied Italian and political science, and spent a semester at the University of Bologna, considered to be the world’s oldest university in continuous operation, in Italy. After college, he got a job working at the Illinois State Legislature.

But his faith had been formed in the Amigos de Cristo youth group at his home parish, and he was still discerning a call to the priesthood. He decided to go to early morning Mass every day during Lent, and found that he didn’t want that to end.

He entered seminary in 2015, and over 10 years — including time away for further discernment — he taught English in El Salvador, worked as a busboy, attended a religious sister’s final vows in Uganda, volunteered at Kolbe House Jail Ministry and met his best friends ever on the first day of “priest school.”

“What a life!” he said. “And at 33, it’s only just begun!”

Father Kevin Menard, 37

First assignment: St. John Cantius, 825 N. Carpenter St.

Born in: Chicago

Education: Westgate Elementary School, Arlington Heights; Rolling Meadows High School; Ave Maria and Marquette universities, University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary

First Mass: St. John Cantius

Father Kevin Menard first heard the call to priesthood when he was very young, maybe even in kindergarten, when he would attend daily Mass with his mother.

“I knew at that age that the priest was close to Jesus, a friend of Jesus, and I wanted to be as close to him as possible,” he said.

That thought faded into the background, and he got a degree in marketing and worked and played sports and enjoyed life as a young adult. But something was missing.

“I always felt like I was avoiding that true calling to follow Christ that I felt when I was in kindergarten, and I felt our Lord softly saying to me, ‘If you were to die today, would you feel you followed the calling I put on your heart?’” Menard said.

After more than a year of discernment, he joined the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in 2016 at age 28.

“I chose religious life because I had always known I wanted to be a religious brother since the time I was little. I wanted to be like the early apostles whom Jesus sent out two by two, and who lived in community and shared all things in common; I wanted to be a part of a brotherhood,” he said.

Now he is excited to begin ministry as a priest.

“As a priest I hope to be an instrument of God’s truth and love, and to share with the people of God his mercy, hope, joy and healing,” Menard said.