Javier Barreto

Father Javier Barreto is the kind of priest who feeds people, and he means it in every sense. Before he ever wore a collar, he was a chef, cooking for the Hyatt hotel chain, and one of his brothers likes to say his parishioners will never go hungry and never be sad.

He grew up in Manatí, Puerto Rico, the fourth of five children, in a home he describes as Catholic more by name than by practice. Even so, something in him leaned toward the altar early. He was serving Mass by the age of eight, and after an uncle told him he looked like a little priest, the family started teasing him with it. He went to everything the church had going, and when he had no ride, he simply walked.

The call did not come quickly. His career was going well and he was happy, he says, but there was always something missing. A priest noticed him praying alone before the Blessed Sacrament one Holy Thursday and asked whether he had ever thought about the priesthood. He said no and, by his own account, kind of ran away, though the question kept following him. When he finally told his family, his father asked him three times if he was sure. Soon after, his father, who had long kept the faith at arm's length, made his confession and came home to the Church, not long before Barreto lost him. He entered St. John Vianney Seminary in 2006 and was ordained for the Archdiocese of Miami in 2015, serving in Miami parishes before he came to Hollywood.

Today he leads Little Flower Parish, a warm community of about a thousand families, half of them Hispanic, that traces its roots back a hundred years to the little French saint it is named for, Therese of Lisieux. Barreto arrived as the parish neared its centennial, and he speaks about the milestone with real gratitude, calling it a privilege to build up what he inherited for the generations still to come. He has leaned into what he loves most, working with young people, the elderly, and the sick, offering Mass in both English and Spanish, and opening the church for adoration during the week.

For all of it, the chef in him never really left. He still seems to measure a good day by whether the people in front of him have been fed, at the altar and at the table both, and he still hopes to be, as he once put it, an instrument to bring people back, like his dad.