Gerardo Sarabia's family has filed a civil lawsuit against the Pajaro Valley Unified School District after the Aptos High School student was murdered on ca.
Father Antonino. Father Álvaro. Father Juan. Father Gustavo.
The loss of four spiritual brothers plus a beloved deacon over five weeks last spring was almost too much to bear for Julio César Ponce, the youngest priest in the Catholic diocese in this working-class city of 3 million just east of Mexico’s capital.
He wept alone in his small apartment, thinking about how the men had died in isolation, without even receiving their last rites.
Advertisement
Advertisement
“We couldn’t be with them in their ultimate moment,” Ponce recalled. “We prayed for them, but we couldn’t accompany them.”
He thought about Gustavo, who had been his professor and mentor in seminary, who often told his pupils, “Being a priest means being close to the people.”