Fr. Pires will guide Saints Peter and Paul community

Friday, May. 13, 2016

LOGAN — Father Francisco Pires will become the new administrator at Saints Peter and Paul Parish in West Valley City on Aug. 1.

Since 2011, Fr. Pires has been pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish and Saint Jerome Chapel and Newman Center in Logan, his second occasion leading that parish. He first served in Logan from 1995 to 1999, leaving for an assignment in Tremonton.

Fr. Pires was born in 1957 in Brazil. He is the third oldest in a family of nine children, two girls and seven boys.

He said that he felt his call to the priesthood since he was very young; he entered the seminary when he was in the 8th grade.

His home was located a mile away from the seminary, so “when we were kids the seminary’s soccer fields were our favorite playground on weekends,” said Fr. Pires, who speaks three languages: Spanish, Portuguese and English.

On Dec. 8, 1984 Fr. Pires was ordained a priest at Immaculate Conception Parish in Morretes, Tubarão, Brazil by Bishop Osorio Bebber.

In 1991, after almost seven years working as a priest in Brazil, he came to the United States on a tourist visa, planning to stay for a year studying English and then return to Brazil, “but God had other plans for me,” Fr. Pires said. “I ended up serving the Diocese of Phoenix for four years.”

In 1994 Father Pires attended a conference of Hispanic priests in Texas. There he met Father Hernando Diaz, pastor of Saint Bridget Parish and Saint John Bosco and Holy Family missions, who invited him to visit Utah.

During his visit, Fr. Pires talked with Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald, then vicar general of the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

“He told of the need of priests to serve the growing Hispanic population,” Fr. Pires said. “That was a call to come to Utah. Letters were exchanged with my bishop in Brazil, and I’ve been here since, now incardinated into this diocese.”

For more than 20 years Fr. Pires has served in the diocese in the parishes or missions of Brigham City, Logan, Tremonton, Richfield, Torrey, Gunnison, Orem, Ephraim, Midvale and Riverton, where he was the founding pastor of Saint Andrew Parish. 

The announcement of his new assignment in West Valley City has been received with a lot of joy and honor – “mixed emotions for sure,” said Fr. Pires, adding that he had always looked at the diocese as a whole, “whether I was working in Riverton or here in Logan for the second time.”

Fr. Pires said that leaving a community is always difficult because after having been there he establishes connections with the people.

“Whether you have been in a parish for one year, two years, three years or five years, you always make ties, especially with those that you work very closely, like the ministries and the parish council. Over here in Logan we have the Newman Center. … It’s always hard to leave a place,” he said. 

Taking his new assignment as a new opportunity to learn, Fr. Pires wants the congregation at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish to know that he plans to continue the work that the previous pastor was doing, saying that that’s his motto.

“Going to another place I have always looked at it as a new beginning, as an opportunity to learn. The first thing, when you get to a new place, is to learn from the community how the community works; interact with the people that are doing ministries, and see the needs of the community,” said Fr. Pires, adding that since he received the news for his assignment he has been praying for all the community.

“The day of my ordination, I told my parents, brothers and sisters that from now on all these people you see in front of you are part of my family, too. My family keeps growing larger and larger,” said Fr. Pires.