Fr. Mario León Dorado is a Spanish

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

priest, in the

Oblates of Mary Immaculate The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) is a missionary Congregation of Papal Right, religious congregation in the Catholic Church. It was founded on January 25, 1816, by Eugène de Mazenod, a France, French priest born in Aix-en-Provence ...

. He is currently the

Apostolic prefect An apostolic prefect or prefect apostolic is a priest who heads what is known as an apostolic prefecture, a 'pre-diocesan' missionary jurisdiction where the Catholic Church is not yet sufficiently developed to have it made a diocese. Although it ...

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the r ...

Early life

Mario León Dorado was born in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, Spain on 17 March 1974. As he grew up, he decided that he wanted to undertake missionary work, taking his vows on 15 September 1996. He was later ordained as priest on 2 June 2001, and served for three years in the Province of Jaén in Spain, with a desire to be posted to a ministry in an Arabic region afterwards. This was following a visit to the Sahara area as a student.

Western Sahara

Upon the completion of the Jaén posting, he moved to the Sahara region and began to learn Arabic, French and English in order to better serve his parishioners. When he first arrived in the area, he was taken for a walk by Fr.

Acacio Valbuena Rodríguez Fr. Acacio Valbuena Rodríguez (8 May 1922 – 4 May 2011) was the Roman Catholic Prefect for Western Sahara. He was ordained as priest in the Oblates of Mary Immaculate on 17 March 1945, and on July 10, 1994, John Paul II installed him in th ...

and told "these are your parishioners, all Muslims. Being with them is what you have to do". On 24 June 2013, he was appointed by

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

, prefecture of which he had been the administrator since the resignation of Rodríguez in 2009. He took possession of the position on 29 September, at a celebration at St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral, Laayoune. Dorado is the third Apostolic prefect of the region, following Rodríguez and Félix Erviti Barcelona. Dorado described Christians in Western Sahara as being equivalent to foreigners, since there were around 600 in a total population of around 800,000 in the country. He serves two churches; the Catheral in Laayoune and a church in Dakhla, as well as a chapel in the port of Laayoune.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorado, Mario Leon 1974 births Catholic Church in Western Sahara Spanish expatriates in Western Sahara 21st-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests Place of birth missing (living people) Living people People from Laayoune People from Madrid Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate