Fr Miguel Ángel Llamas, LC

Rome, January 17, 2011. Fr Miguel Ángel Llamas, LC is the new rector of the John Paul II College for Priests in Rome. He officially began his new assignment on January 3, on the date when the Legion of Christ celebrated the 70th anniversary of its foundation.

Fr Miguel Ángel, LC, will be taking the place of Fr Javier García, LC, who directed the college since its foundation in 2005. Fr Llamas was born on August 6, 1955 in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), in Spain. He was ordained a priest on September 21, 1989 in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

The John Paul II College for Priests began as the Maria Mater Ecclesiae Center for Priests, located in Castel di Guido, just outside of Rome. In 2005, the Holy See approved the center’s statutes through the Congregation for Catholic Education.

On November 1, 2009, the Maria Mater Ecclesiae Center for Priests started a new stage in its history, changing both its location and its name. The new center is located in the middle of Rome, in a property belonging to the Holy See, on Vía Monte della Farina, a short distance from the church of St. Andrew of the Valley, very close to the Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. The new building has a chapel, 40 rooms with their own bathrooms, a library, a dining room, and a living room.

The college offers the priests—whose bishops sent them to complete their studies—a fellowship community with the opportunity to deepen and increase their spiritual life and their human, intellectual, and pastoral formation. Its specific purpose, as stated in its statutes, is to work with the bishops in the formation of priests who can offer high-caliber service as formators after completing their studies and returning to their own dioceses. A team of spiritual directors and academic tutors works with the rector to help achieve this objective.

For more information about the John Paul II College for Priests, contact:

Via Monte della Farina, 64
00186 Roma
tel: 0039 06 89 67 94 20    
cell: 347 03 11 796
e-mail: csgp2@legionaries.org