Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P., Itinerant Preacher
Hello! My religious name of profession is Friar Mariano. I’m originally from the Central San Joaquin Valley in California. I was born in Fresno, but raised in Firebaugh. I’m a priest in the Order of Friars Preachers in the Province of St. Martin de Porres, located in the Southern United States. I love being a Dominican priest! Thanks be to God for my vocation. I’ve been blessed to live in the South for the last 12 years, including Irving, TX; St. Louis, MO; Houston, TX and New Orleans, LA. I completed my undergraduate studies at California State University, Fresno in 1993 with a B.A. Degree in Latin American Studies. In graduate school I studied at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology of the Graduate Theological Union, earning a Master of Divinity in 2003. This is the graduate school of the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. I also graduated in 2013 from the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, MO where I did a Master of Arts in Systematic Theology with a concentration in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. This degree was for research and teaching. Before joining the Order of Preachers, I was a counselor for troubled children and adolescents for about 12 years in large mental health institutions in California. I also participated in Latin American missions before becoming a Dominican. Currently, as Promoter of the Rosary, I’m involved in itinerant preaching, offering parish missions to churches throughout the United States through the Dominican Rosary Apostolate, “Preach My Psalter”.