Rev. Jose Miguel Serafini
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Parochial VicarFatherJoseStAlsCaldwell.orgFather José Miguel Serafini is the fourth of ten siblings and was born in Asunción, Paraguay. He attended public schools and initially pursued a career in Engineering before leaving after three semesters to enter seminary formation.
While studying at Seton Hall University, he spent three years engaged in missionary work in New Mexico and West Virginia. His favorite hobbies include playing soccer, hiking, and reading.
Father José completed his diaconate assignment at St. Peter’s Parish in Belleville and continues his permanent formation through the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and a Neocatechumenal community at Sacred Heart Church in Lyndhurst.
“I was interested in the priesthood from a tender age of about seven. I would see the priest at Mass and say, “I would like to be like him,” but as I grew up, the thought of it disappeared amid other distractions and the things of life.
In my early teens, I would go to Mass more out of obligation and to please my mom, but when I was 15, my mother invited me to some catechesis for adults in the church, and I went. They helped me to reconnect with my faith and the Church. A couple of years later, during a retreat, I felt the call to the priesthood while listening to the testimonies and stories of a family doing missionary work in China.
After that, I followed up with meetings at a vocational center, and after two years of preliminary discernment, I decided to leave my career and enter full-time in the seminary formation in 2015.
I am deeply grateful to all the people who accompanied me before and during my seminary years. I was ordained a Priest on May 23, 2026. Now I am entering a new time, and I hope by God's grace to minister and learn in Caldwell.”