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In 1974, we were invited to collaborate with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, in California, USA, where we have attended to the spiritual needs of parishes distinguished by the ethnic diversity of their congregations, composed of Anglo-Americans, Koreans, and Latinos, among others.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
We are delighted to welcome you to the website of the Guadalupe Missioners in the United States.
The Guadalupe Missioners have been present in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles since January 1974, but it was in 2021 that it was decided to elevate our presence and pastoral work in this country to the rank of “Mission of the United States of America.”
In the more than fifty years we have been in this country, we have learned that the United States is a land of mission, since in recent years this country has promoted and favored a secular culture that has spread throughout the world. In this culture, the existence of God is denied, and Christian culture is openly attacked. Throughout the country, more and more laws are being passed that promote the culture of death or go against the concept of the traditional family. The Good News of Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and as such we proclaim it and bring it to life in our daily journey, because this is the Mission of the Church, that is, the Mission of each one of us who is baptized in Christ.
The Church’s mission faces many challenges in the multicultural, multiracial, and multi-ideological context of American society. Apart from the initial proclamation of the Gospel, we must also pay attention to the re-evangelization of those who have already been baptized. Furthermore, the formation of agents of evangelization is very important.
The reality is that the vast majority of the residents of this country are migrants or, in some cases, first, second, or third generation migrants. Failure to accept this reality leads to persecution based on skin color, language, or social status, which are clearly anti-Christian attitudes.
These are some of the most challenging characteristics of American society and guide our apostolate.
Here in the United States—particularly in California—we serve in close communion with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, working together to bring Christ’s love, hope, and mercy to the People of God. Encouraged by the grace of the Holy Spirit, our priests accompany three parish communities where faith is celebrated and lived in a vibrant way. These parrishes are: Sta. Martha Catholic Parish, Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church & Our Lady of Solitude Parish
Globally, faithful to our call to go “where we are most needed,” we are present in:
ASIA: – Japan – South Korea – Hong Kong – Indonesia.
AFRICA: – Kenya – Angola – Mozambique – Tunisia.
AMERICA: – Mexico – Cuba – Guatemala – The Amazon.
Thank you for taking the time to learn about our mission and ministry. May this website be the means by which we form and strengthen the bonds of our missionary family in the joy of the Gospel.
I pray that Our Lady of Guadalupe will intercede for you and your loved ones, and that her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, will bless you abundantly.
With gratitude and prayer,
Fr. Salvador Rojas Vega, MG
Director of the Mission in the United States
Guadalupe Missioners
Browse moments from our parishes, missions, and community events. See how faith is lived, celebrated, and shared through the work of the Guadalupe Missioners.
Discover where we serve across the globe and how our missionaries bring the Gospel, pastoral care, and formation to communities most in need.
Read featured updates, reflections, and mission news from ALMAS. Stay connected with our spiritual work, outreach efforts, and upcoming initiatives.
3:00pm Mass
4:30pm Reception
Sta. Maria Magdalena Catholic Church, 1241 S. Corning St. Los Angeles, CA 90035
Visit our Guadalupe Missioners booth!
St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church
4245 Acacia Avenue
Pico Rivera, CA 90660
For more information, please call: (323) 937-2780
As a Padrino or Madrina, you walk alongside our missionaries in spirit, helping bring the Gospel to those who long for Christ in places where hope is most needed. Through your prayers and support, you become part of a living mission that reaches hearts around the world.
We are deeply grateful for your generous support, which sustains the formation of our missionaries and strengthens our priests in their work of proclaiming the Gospel.
Thank you for opening your heart to this mission. May our Lord bless you abundantly, and may Our Lady of Guadalupe lovingly protect you and your family always.
Your generosity helps us continue our mission to serve the spiritual and physical needs of our parish and the wider community. Thank you for supporting our ministries.
Pastor – Fr. Alejandro Mendez, MG
Associate Pastor – Fr. Enrique Hernandez, MG
Associate Pastor – Fr. Jerry A. Gutierrez
Office Administrator – Nelly Laura Calderon
Pastor – Fr. Carlos May Correa, MG
Associate Pastor – Fr. Jorge Cruz, MG
Associate Pastor – Fr. Ruben Jesus Reyes Hernandez
Office Administrator – Elena Hernandez
Administrator – Fr. Victor Zavala, MG
Associate Pastor – Fr. Gunther Alejandro Weigend Hernandez, MG
Associate Administrator – Rev. Deacon Sergio Perez
Office Manager – Fabiola Garcia



















JAPAN: Japan is the country where we carried out our first missionary service (1956); it gave us the challenge of becoming one with our Japanese brothers and sisters, adapting to their culture and traditions, learning the language, in order to communicate the Gospel of the Lord. Today, Japan is an economically developed, cultured, and educated country, but the vast majority of its inhabitants still do not know the “true God, for whom we live.”
SOUTH KOREA: Korea was our second mission (1962). We arrived just after the war that devastated that country had ended. From the beginning, the Korean people showed openness to receiving the word of God and gratitude for receiving it; this situation helped the people to be spiritually ready to encounter God. Today, thank God, Korea is experiencing a good number of priestly and religious vocations.
HONG KONG: (1975) Since arriving in this beautiful land, our dream has been to evangelize mainland China, the most populous country in the world, of which Hong Kong is a part. We rejoice in these 50 years and more of missionary work in this “fragrant harbor.”
INDONESIA: On October 7, 2023, the Guadalupe Missioners, responding to the call to be a Church that reaches out, ventured into the Muslim world for the first time, founding the Mission of Indonesia, where we bring our faith and witness hand in hand with Saint Mary of Guadalupe.
KENYA: In 1965, the first Guadalupe Missionaries arrived in this African country. Currently, our priests are present in this nation, accompanied by lay missionaries who, in addition to sharing their faith, also share their profession in favor of Kenyan communities.
ANGOLA: We began this mission in January 1981, in the midst of a war that bled the country dry: insecurity, hunger, suffering of the people and the Church, with many priests, religious, and catechists murdered, but with a great thirst for God. Today the war is over. The seed has borne fruit: the Guadalupe Missioners trained more than 100 priests in the seminary, some of whom are now bishops. Let us pray to the Lord for all of them. May they in turn be The Father’s Missioners.
MOZAMBIQUE: (2000). Like Angola, Mozambique suffered the pain of war. Today, it has great needs in terms of economics, health, education, and spiritual care. This has been an enormous challenge. Since our inception, the Guadalupe Missioners have worked with joy and hope so that socio-political stability will soon be achieved and a Church willing to present the Face of Christ to all its children will increasingly reemerge.
TUNISIA: On December 12, 2023, Guadalupe Missioners took on the challenge of bringing and sharing the Gospel of Life in the Muslim world, founding the Mission of Tunisia, always guided by our star of evangelization, Saint Mary of Guadalupe.
PERU: Our first mission in Latin America, born out of an urgent request from its bishops in the face of a serious shortage of priests. We continue to collaborate with this sister Church, birthplace of Saint Martin de Porres and Saint Rose of Lima.
BRAZIL: Country of Our Lady of Aparecida. A country suffering from stark economic and social differences, needing the presence of Christ the Redeemer even in the most remote areas of the Amazon rainforest. There we are, the Guadalupe Missioners, serving our Brazilian brothers and sisters and proclaiming Jesus the Savior.
GUATEMALA: Our Mission in Guatemala has been a special face of the Guadalupe Missioners in America. We are present only through the Lay Missionary Associates. We support the local Church, particularly in rural areas.
CUBA: (1995) Known as “the Pearl of the Caribbean.” We accompany, proclaim, and serve with dedication our Cuban brothers and sisters, who for many years have been living with great faith and in need of priestly care, amid difficult socio-political circumstances. Let us pray to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre for our Cuban brothers and sisters and for our Guadalupe Missioners on that beautiful island.
UNITED STATES: In this country, our missionary service consists of helping people to know and live their faith in Christ, particularly our Hispanic brothers and sisters. United States of America: “Land of opportunity,” but very poor spiritually.
THE VATICAN: Pope Pius XII suggested to Bishop Alonso Escalante, the first Superior General, that our Missionary Institute be given the name Guadalupe Missioners, in honor of the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe, Patroness of Mexico and all of America.
MEXICO: In 1949, as a result of a missionary congress in Mexico, the bishops of that country decided to found a missionary institute to proclaim the Gospel to those who do not know it. The official name of our institute is: Institute of Saint Mary of Guadalupe for Foreign Missions. The generosity of you, our sponsors, is the foundation for the formation of our seminarians and for the service of our priests in the missions.
We entrust ourselves to Her and ask Her to protect our Peoples from violence and the destruction of our values.
May she protect all of you, our Sponsors and their families, with her mantle; strengthen our faith, and help us realize that she is always with us, for she said:
“Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Are you not in my womb? Why are you afraid?”

Excerpt from the address of Pope Leo XIV on the occasion of World Food Day, Rome, October 16, 2025.
It is necessary — and deeply saddening — to acknowledge that, despite technological, scientific, and productive advances, 673 million people in the world go to bed without eating. Another 2.3 billion cannot afford nutritionally adequate food. Perhaps the most moving statistic is that of children suffering from malnutrition, with the resulting illnesses and delays in motor and cognitive development.
At a time when science has extended life expectancy, technology has brought continents closer together, and knowledge has opened previously unimaginable horizons, allowing millions of human beings to live — and die — struck down by hunger is a collective failure, an ethical aberration, a historical guilt.
May God renew in each of us that hope which does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5). The challenges ahead of us are immense, but so too are our potential and the possible paths of action. Hunger has many names and weighs upon the entire human family. Every human person hungers not only for bread, but also for everything that allows them to mature and grow toward the happiness for which we were all created.
— Leo PP. XIV
Fr. Rodolfo Rafael Sánchez Díaz, MG
Pope Leo XIV’s intention in this context is deeply rooted in human dignity. Food is not merely a basic right, but a fundamental necessity for each person to fully develop their potential.
The Pope emphasizes that access to food should not depend on a person’s economic, social, or geographic situation, but must be a collective commitment to ensuring that everyone has what they need to live with dignity.
This approach goes beyond the simple distribution of food; it also involves promoting integral human development — where people do not merely survive, but are able to grow in all their capacities: physical, intellectual, and spiritual.
In this sense, the Pope advocates for a world in which solidarity and social justice guide international policies and actions.
Let us pray that each person — from large producers to small consumers — will commit to avoiding food waste, and that everyone may have access to quality nourishment.

Fr. Miguel Ángel Varela Chávez, MG
“Pilgrims of Hope” — the theme of the Holy Year we have just celebrated — has held a special meaning for me, working in the Mission of Japan, where conversions are very few and it sometimes seems as though we will disappear, growing old with the passing years, before the seed planted by so many missionaries is ever seen to bloom.
In my experience as a missionary in this country, I have come to understand what patient waiting truly means — the hope of trusting that the seedling that has already sprouted will be able to grow.
The more than 200 years of persecution that followed the golden age of Japan’s first evangelization, from 1549 to 1650, left a deep mark on the newly established Christian communities. They later faced persecution and martyrdom — believers who had to flee the land of their birth to live in exile and in hiding, working in foreign lands and enduring the hardships of being fugitives in their own homeland, bearing the stigma of being seen as traitors and becoming strangers to their own people.
The Diocese of Sendai, in northeastern Japan, was one of the great scenes of martyrdom and humiliation for many of these faithful, who had journeyed from the south of the country to flee persecution, only to find death or disgrace in these northern regions as well.
Despite the rejection that the Catholic faith has faced, and even though believers remain a small minority, their presence has been of great importance in Japan’s history — both in the historical process of opening to the Western world and in terms of economic and cultural development. The experience of encounter with missionaries played a very important role in shaping the modern Japanese state, open to modernity, which no longer recognizes within itself the historical clash that allowed it to grow and become what it is today. The encounter with Christianity has instilled a new way of thinking; it has been the grafting of a renewed life into the very heart of the people’s culture.
For me, evangelization in this country has had to take on a particular character of encounter and accompaniment — one that is not only a first proclamation of the Gospel, but also a source of hope for the oldest Christians, those who worked so hard to keep the seed of faith alive, a seed that has seemingly been unable to grow, yet has never been extinguished.
“The encounter with Christianity has instilled a new way of thinking; it has been the grafting of a renewed life into the very heart of the people’s culture.”
Many have been the sufferings endured by the “hidden Christians” who, together with the martyrs, have strived to keep this light — which is now part of the culture and history of the people — shining as a beacon of hope in the growth of today’s society.
Contact with this reality has created a bond that keeps us united, and it makes me feel with them one soul and one heart as we walk joyfully toward our encounter with the Lord.

Happy Mother’s Day, Guadalupe Missioners!
Dear Godfathers and Godmothers,
we celebrate with gratitude and love the precious gift of motherhood.
Let us ask God and the Virgin Mary to grant them the reward of eternal happiness; we honor those who already rejoice in the presence of the Lord.