Prep Journeys: Rev. Pedro Tomas, S.J.

This school year, we are reflecting on Prep Journeys. Each person who arrives on our campus has made a journey. Once here, they chart their own Prep Journey along with many other like-minded women and men who believe in the power of a Jesuit education.

This week, we are going to highlight a newcomer to the Prep, with perhaps the longest journey to arrive at 17th and Girard. Rev. Pedro Tomas, S.J., is in the United States to study education. His superior in Africa has asked him to create the first Jesuit high school in Angola since the 1700s. A big task, but Fr. Tomas is no stranger to big tasks: he is the first Angolan Jesuit ordained in over 200 years; in his ministry, he has had to learn several languages just to continue his studies and minister to the people of his congregation; in the Diocese of Mbanza Kongo, he was the pastor of Beata Anuarite Parish, where he celebrated 22 Masses per week and ministered to more than 50,000 adults and children alike, all the while working to build a church. 

Now, he is in Philadelphia to earn his Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Saint Joseph’s University. At the Prep, he is learning how a high school runs, shadowing President John Marinacci and other members of leadership while also sitting in on classes and meeting with faculty and staff. By 2028, he hopes to have his degree and return to Angola.

This is his Journey.

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For Pedro Tomas, becoming a priest wasn’t necessarily the plan. His small village in Uige Province of Angola didn’t have much contact with priests, who came maybe monthly or every other month. The Bishop would pay an annual visit to the village. Otherwise, the faith was passed on by lay men and women. 

The son of Pedro Baptista and Maria Morena, Pedro was baptized at age four. However, at age 18, he made what may have been a surprising decision to enter Major Seminary. 

“I had grown up with the faith, and had been an altar server,” says Fr. Tomas, “but I never expected to enter seminary. People suggested it for me and I started to see myself becoming a priest. I had never had a clear idea of becoming a priest, but I kept the desire to serve the Church more and more.”

By this time, his mother had passed away and a Civil War was raging in his country. When he told his father of his decision, he was supportive. “My father told me that God gives different gifts to each of us and he was glad I had made a choice,” Fr. Tomas says. “He told me to take care of myself and challenged me to be flexible to what God had in store for me.”

Tomas went to seminary but, after three years, he came to a scary realization: he didn’t want to be a diocesan priest. Instead, he wanted to join the Jesuits. This may have been divinely inspired; after all, Pedro had no experience with the Jesuits except for the Sisters of Divine Shepherds, a Mexican-based group of women who were ministering in Angola and “had told me stories about these incredible Jesuits from their history,” Fr. Tomas says. “I saw that there are many different ways to serve God and His people. All the time that I was in seminary, I kept thinking about the Jesuits.”

He approached the Bishop to ask to be released from the Seminary. “He was surprised, saying that you are three years into your training, why leave now,” Pedro remembers. “I was firm however and told him about my discernment. At the end of the meeting, he encouraged me to go and become a good son of St. Ignatius.”

The next step on his journey took him to the Jesuit novitiate in Mozambique. For two years, he had no contact with his family as communication was nearly impossible, especially during a civil war. When he pronounced his first vows in 2001, he returned to his village and saw his father for the first time in four years. Just weeks later the man passed away, but it took three months for word to reach Pedro via a relative. “My dad knew that I might not be around when he passed,” Pedro remembers. “He asked me to come home at some point and tend to the grave, which I did with my brothers and sisters.”

For his next stage of Jesuit training he was sent to Democratic Republic of Congo to learn philosophy. First, though, he had to learn French as the classes were taught in that language, different from his native Portuguese. After four years there, he returned to Angola. As a regent, he was assigned to be the program director for Working with Refugees, which ministered to people in need who had fled their countries as well as those displaced from their homes. Soon, he was sent to theological studies in Kenya, where he first had to learn yet another language. “They sent me to South Africa for four months to study basic English,” he says. 

In 2010, he was ordained a deacon and sent to the US to receive a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL), a two-year Catholic ecclesiastical degree in advanced theological study at Boston College. Midway through the study, he returned to Angola to be ordained a priest on July 24, 2011, in Luanda, Angola’s Capital City. His first Mass was in Uige before he went to his village to celebrate Mass there for his family and friends. 

After finishing in Boston, he returned to Angola and was given a choice by the Provincial: teach at a Catholic University or go to Mbauza Kongo and assist the Bishop there. “There were just 10 priests in the whole diocese and the Bishop needed help,” Fr. Tomas says. He was appointed as a  Pastoral Minister and lived in the Bishop’s home. He also became a rector of the Minor Seminary there, teaching undergraduate students philosophy and Portuguese. 

“I was excited to be doing this work,” he says. “I was happy to be doing meaningful work for the church.”

As a priest, he traveled for miles to reach remote villages like his own. He was a counselor and a catechist, starting two choirs to allow people to serve God. Then, in 2016, he was sent to Luwanda and a parish run by the Jesuits. It was then when Fr. Tomas saw that he might be able to serve more than just his parish; perhaps he could help reconcile those factions that had been at war for so long. 

“I saw the incredible impact done by the civil war,” he says. “While there was technically peace, every election brought violence and fighting between parties. I felt that we needed a genuine reconciliation.” 

He founded the Association of Friends for Peace in Angola (AAPA). They used April 4, as their birth date, the day that the peace agreement had been signed. “I thought that we could be agents of peace and we made really good progress,” he says. “We learned that if we give our hearts to our neighbors, in our classroom, in our homes, that we could make a difference and change things.”

The group made major strides and even received acknowledgement from the government’s Minister of Justice. The AAPA continues to this day and is a point of pride for Fr. Tomas, even though he is half a world away. 

Now, he is in Philadelphia, working to learn as much as he can. The idea of starting a Jesuit High School in Angola began in 2010. “Since then, we have sent other men to study education,” he says. “It is so important as a school of the quality of a Jesuit education is much needed.”

While he studies, others will work on building. Hopefully, by the time that he returns in 2028, he can get moving right away. Though his studies at SJU are important, so too is his time at the Prep. “I am grateful to have the opportunity to learn how things are done here,” Fr. Tomas says. “Things like curriculum and structure are helpful. I also want to see how the Prep maintains its Jesuit tradition even though most of those who work here are not Jesuits.”

What he is trying to do is historic. The Jesuits led the biggest school in Angola before being suppressed, when they lost everything in that country. For Fr. Tomas, history doesn’t faze him. However, working for his people and for God is all that matters.