To the Sentinel:
I received a young man into the Church when I was the parish priest at Florence.
His father had grown up and was raised in a Catholic family in the northeastern states during the tumultuous 1960s. When he left home he came west, and met and married a girl from a devout evangelical family.
He became a chemical engineer working for International Paper. Three children were born to them and the mother wanted a religious family worshipping together.
After many years of religious affiliation in different churches and, though successful in involving the children in programs, the woman came one day hesitantly and shyly to ring the bell of the rectory in Florence to ask if she could quietly learn something about the Catholic Church.
She did not want her family, her parents and relatives to know about her inquiry. She was reared in a staunch Evangelical home where men had been ministers of churches and not favorably inclined toward Catholics. But she thought perhaps becoming Catholic was the only way to bring some religious unity to her family.
We began the inquiry and her faith and comprehension so impressed me it was as if God had prepared her for the day she asked to be received into the Church.
I told her the time had come to tell her family, husband and children and gradually parents and relatives. For me it was a remarkable experience of faith and love of God.
The children were ages of 15, 12 and 9, all greatly involved with Evangelical Protestantism.
At first I was anxious and concerned for them; they were stiff and reserved.
With gentleness and care, they accepted and followed their parents as if the family had always been Catholic.
The middle child was a girl killed in an automobile accident on U.S. Highway 101 some years ago when she was traveling to Southwestern Community College in North Bend.
Wesley, the oldest child, was a very bright student. He received the highest honors in high school and a scholarship to Caltech.
After taking a bachelor’s degree in applied physics, he took a master’s degree at the University of California in San Diego and was of the mind to study for a doctoral degree when he made the decision to enter the Dominican Order and took the name of Brother Raphael Mary.
He was ordained May 30 in St. Dominic’s Church San Francisco. I attended.
It is the 56th anniversary of my ordination. I have written this so you may better understand his biography.
Wesley Salzillo grew up in Florence, and converted to the Catholic faith along with his family at the age of 15.
He graduated from Siuslaw High School in 1994 and then attended Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., where he studied applied physics. After completing a master’s degree at UC San Diego, he entered the Dominican Order and took the name Raphael Mary.
After one year as a novice, he studied philosophy and theology in Berkeley. He also spent a year at the University of Arizona Newman Center as a Dominican brother.
Father Raphael Mary’s first assignment will be in Seattle where he will be serve both at Blessed Sacrament Parish and at the Newman Center at the University of Washington.
He celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving last weekend at Our Lady of the Dunes Parish in Florence.

Father Vincent Cunniff
Beaverton