Florida Catholic | The Dancer: Father Alejandro Rodriguez

MULTIMEDIA SPECIAL: Six New Priests: In their own words

ANA RODRIGUEZ–SOTO | FC

The Dancer

Father Alejandro Rodriguez is a ballet dancer who stayed connected with God despite the milieu of his profession.

ANA RODRIGUEZ–SOTO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC MIAMI BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 05.16.08

MIAMI | Father Alejandro Rodriguez, 44, did not think about the priesthood until later in life, after spending years as a professional ballet dancer in Europe – a career he also entered relatively late.

“I started when I was 17,” said the 1981 graduate of Christopher Columbus High School and St. Thomas the Apostle elementary school in Miami.

Thanks to some prodding from his mother and a teacher, he landed a scholarship to the Boston School of Ballet and later the School of American Ballet in New York.

Throughout his dancing career, however, Father Rodriguez stayed connected to God.

“I would go Monday through Saturday to church, every morning before going to the studio. None of my dancer friends understood me, but I was the one they always turned to when they were in trouble.”

After returning to Miami and becoming more involved in his parish of St. Agnes in Key Biscayne and later with the dance ministry at St. Louis in Pinecrest, the thought of the priesthood became more persistent. But nothing concrete seemed to happen.

From 1992, when he made a vocation awareness retreat, to 1999 when he finally entered the seminary, he said he kept asking, “What’s going on? Why haven’t I started?”

Father James Fetscher, pastor of St. Louis, advised patience, telling him, “He’ll call when he calls.”

Finally, the message came loud and clear. By that time he was working for an interior design firm and using dancing as ministry. While performing at a nondenominational event in Ohio, two ladies came up to him at different times and said almost exactly the same thing.

“I don’t know what this means in your church or religion, but God told me to speak priesthood into your life,” said one. A few hours later, another woman practically repeated the words.

Finally, as he was preparing to leave, the Methodist woman in whose home he had stayed embraced him and said, “I feel like I’ve had a priest in my home this week.”

“So I said, ‘three strikes, you’re out. This is it,’” Father Rodriguez recalled.

“Today I am the happiest woman in the world,” said his mother, Mercy Rodriguez, “knowing I have a son who has given himself to God.”

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