PAWTUCKET — The old church looks essentially the same, inside and out, as the young man remembers it. Much has changed, though. Not least of which, the parish in Pawtucket’s Darlington neighborhood has merged with several others and now goes by a new name. Then again, so does he. Still, the young man retains many fond memories of when he was attending Masses and classes here at its adjacent elementary school. Including this one.
“I was 9 or 10 years old,” recalls the man whom family and friends first knew as Daniel Arteaga, “and we were attending Sunday Mass at [the church formerly known as] St. Cecilia’s, and randomly, during the consecration and elevation of the host, I just looked over at my mom and said, ‘I want to be a priest.’”
Kids say the darndest things. Thing is … this kid meant it.
“There was something about the identity of the priest in that moment,” he explains, “something just so distinct, that there’s this man, set apart, in the sanctuary, doing this very singular thing, offering the Mass and the body and blood of Christ to the faithful. In that moment, this was his responsibility. He was consecrated, set apart to be this mediator between God and men, and to call down God, to feed us with His body and blood. That was just so striking to me, that the priest was unlike anyone else, really.”
Two decades later and only two weeks removed from his priestly ordination, he’s returned to the busy corner of Newport and Central Avenues on this first Sunday of June 2026 to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi – his first Mass as Father Raphael – with the congregation at what is now called St. John Paul II Church. “I grew up in the parish, but it was nonetheless shocking to [my mother]. It’s not just any career. It’s a whole life. But she prayed for me, kind of left it to me.”
With each passing year, his determination to fulfill his calling endured. After graduating from St. Cecilia School in 2011, then-Daniel enrolled at nearby St. Raphael Academy (whose mascot is the Saints) before continuing his studies at Providence College – each of these Catholic-based institutions serving to reinforce his vocational impulses.
“On [the PC] campus,” he adds, “I realized that not only did I have a priestly vocation, but a religious vocation, too, and I wanted to dedicate the whole of my life in sacrifice to God. The Dominican Friars on campus, my chaplains, my professors, my administrators, really gave a joyful witness to the preaching of the name of Jesus Christ.”
Worldwide, hundreds of Catholic religious orders exist – communities of men or women typically living together as subsets of the overarching Church and concentrating on particular skills or functions specific to their order. Augustinians (to whom Pope Leo XIV belongs), Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits, and, of course, Dominicans (administrators of Providence College) represent just a handful of the more well-known orders.
In the United States, Dominicans organize themselves in four geographic regions they call provinces. Candidates (called novices) from the eastern province must first spend a year-long period of discernment and of being discerned (called a novitiate) in Cincinnati, Ohio. Here, just two months after earning his undergraduate degree from PC in 2019, Arteaga joined nine other novices.
Since music is integral to Dominicans, singing lessons dominate Year One – Arteaga jokes that it felt like one long choir practice (“I’m not the best singer, but I’m not the worst!”). Apart from that, novices have no formal studies, but enjoy the freedom to leave at any time, for any reason. Four of the 10 in Arteaga’s class did so. In 2020, he and the remaining five committed to three more years with the Dominicans by taking what are known as simple (or temporary) vows.
They immediately moved to Washington, D.C. to begin formal training at the Dominican House of Studies. Arteaga later extended for two more years, after which he made a solemn profession to continue formation as a deacon and ultimately a priest (or friar, as Dominicans are known).
Along the way, Arteaga faced another choice: keep his original baptismal name of Daniel, or, in keeping with the tradition of religious life, assume a new one. Paying tribute to his alma mater, he chose Raphael.
“Not only because of high school,” he emphasizes, “but also, the Archangel Raphael is the angel of healing. What people really need – each one of us – is God’s healing.
“So much in our culture, in our life, has wounded us, and God desires to heal us completely. Perhaps in ways that we don’t expect. Angels, of course, are messengers of God, and if I can be a messenger of Christ and his healing and the mercy which he bestows on us, then I think my priesthood will be one well spent.”
Now-Father Raphael Arteaga was ordained this past May 23 in our nation’s capital, one of just two from his original novitiate of 10 to complete the process.
“One classmate had joined us as a diocesan priest, so he went back to his diocese,” he said. “A couple of other guys have gotten married, one has a kid now ... The two of us [who stayed] thought, ‘Why us and not them?’”
The answer remains an elusive mystery, one Father Raphael ponders not in regret, only curiosity, and for which he is eternally grateful. Knowing he’d be back home in Pawtucket this month, he asked St. John Paul II’s current pastor, Father Stephen Battey, to let him celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving in the church where he first heard God calling to him.
So it came to be that the young man, who turned 29 in April and became a priest in May, took his albeit temporary place in June at the altar he once gazed upon from the pews.
“I’m going to finish up my studies in D.C. until December,” he reveals. “One more semester, and I’ll have my license in Sacred Theology. After that, I’m ready for my first assignment come January. Somewhere in the U.S., most likely. A parish or campus ministry. Over the years, especially as I’ve been preparing for priesthood, I think my strengths have always been with people, both in talking with them and helping, hopefully, to offer them into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s my goal and the gift God’s given me.”
