Where were you born and raised?
I was born and raised in Taunton, Massachusetts. May father, Robert, was a construction laborer and my mother, Shirley, was a nursing aide. I had five siblings. We had a very simple family life. We all went to public schools and were involved in Catholic Religious Education in Sacred Heart Parish, in the Weir Section of Taunton.
How did you first hear about La Salette?
Since we were a half-hour drive from the Attleboro Shrine, we came regularly to the Christmas Festival of Lights since I was a youngster. My first contact with the La Salette Missionaries was during a Young Adult Retreat Program called Emmaus. When I was at the University of Massachusetts at North Dartmouth, and was involved in my undergraduate studies in marketing, many of the retreat leaders of the Emmaus program were affiliated with the La Salette Retreat House in Attleboro.
After the Emmaus Retreat, they invited me to join them as a Family Retreat Counselor at the Retreat House, and I volunteered. I worked with the yearly Family Labor Day Festival – about five days of booths, food and games for the hundreds of families that came day-to-day. That’s where I met my first La Salette, newly ordained Fr. Ted Brown, part of the retreat center staff.
My father is Victorino and mother, Esmelda. My father died in 1987, two years before my ordination. My mother was a teacher and raised us four boys, of which I am the eldest. One of my brothers, and engineer and engaged in politics, died in 2007. Another one of my brothers is also an a mechanical engineer. He now lives in the United States. My younger brother studied architecture but eventually chose agriculture and is now a farmer.
I studied in a school run by the Missionaries of La Salette in San Mateo, a first calls urban city in the southern Philippines. The director of our school was Fr. Maurice Cardinal, M.S., now 92 years old now and living an active retirement in California. Subsequently I entered the seminary of San Luis in the northern Philippines. From there my class was sent to the University of La Salette in Santiago City in the northern Province of Isabela.
I was then sent to Silang, Cavite, a La Salette Shrine, to study philosophy and then went to in Tagaytay City for my theology. I then served in several different pastoral settings. I professed my first vows as a La Salette in 1981 and was ordained in 1989. My first assignments at St. John’s Parish in Santiago and two other parishes in the same area.
The Academy, founded in 1971 by Sister Helen Dowd, a Sister of St. Joseph of Chambery, in the basement of their motherhouse on Park Street in West Hartford, CT. The Academy serves youths from 6 to 18 years of age who have learning disabilities and emotional problems.
In 1995 the school was able to purchase and transfer to a very contemporary designed synagogue building which has since expanded into an impressive education complex. The Academy has a well-respected reputation throughout Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. When written up in newspaper accounts, a label often given to the Academy is “A School Founded on Love.” Fr. Bill is a Counselor, therapist, spiritual guide, and a member of its Board. He has been a major part of the Academy’s growth and development.