Two Spanish bishops serving in Latin America recount their vocations in Vitoria

Two Spanish bishops working in Latin America described their path to the priesthood and the missions at a panel discussion in Vitoria on the evening of Tuesday, October 6. The event, at the Aula San Pablo, was held for Domund 2026, the Spanish Church's annual World Mission Sunday campaign, which marks its centenary this year.

The speakers were Bishop Álvaro Chordi, auxiliary bishop in Santiago de Chile, and Bishop David Martínez de Aguirre, bishop of Izirzada and apostolic vicar of Puerto Maldonado in Peru. Both traced their journey from lay people discerning a vocation to their episcopal ordination, by way of the priesthood and the missions.

Pope Francis appointed both bishops, as he did Bishop Juan Carlos Elizalde of Vitoria. Elizalde welcomed them and noted the ties both have with the diocese, which covers the province of Álava in the Basque Country.

From Vitoria to Latin America

Chordi was ordained a priest in 1999 at the Cathedral of María Inmaculada, Madre de la Iglesia, in Vitoria. He directed the Obra Diocesana de Formación Profesional, the diocesan vocational training body, and pushed for its merger with the Fundación Jesús Obrero to create EGIBIDE in 2012. At EGIBIDE he served as legal representative, director of identity and mission, and pastoral coordinator until 2015. He had earlier been part of the parish team at San Andrés from 1999 to 2003, and was in charge of youth ministry in the diocese from 2003 to 2008.

Martínez de Aguirre was born in Vitoria in 1970 and studied at the city's Marianist school. Shaped by the faith of his family and of the parish of Santa María de los Ángeles, he professed vows in the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans, in 1993. He was ordained a priest in 1999 and, after a year of pastoral work in Spain, was sent to Peru to strengthen the Church's presence in the Amazon.

Poverty and the future of the missions

The two bishops described in detail young people and society in the areas where they work, the harshness of poverty and exclusion, and the few job prospects open to thousands of young people. They said the Church plays a decisive role in the lives of those families, whose chances of getting ahead remain very limited and precarious.

Both encouraged their audience to sustain and expand the Church's missions, where the poor are at the center of evangelization. The event was part of Domund's 100th anniversary. The 2026 campaign is being held in Vitoria for the first time in that 100-year history.

Pontifical Mission Societies take part

José María Calderón, national director of the Obras Misionales Pontificias (Pontifical Mission Societies, OMP), also joined the discussion and spoke about Ángel Sagarmínaga, the first national director of OMP. Estíbaliz Vea-Murguía, diocesan director of OMP in Vitoria, and Javier Martínez de Bujanda, head of the diocesan missions office, hosted the event. It drew dozens of people of different ages: lay men and women, religious sisters, seminarians and priests. They applauded the bishops' remarks and asked them a range of questions about the Church's mission today.