Fr. Miguel Tovar is 24 years old and is one of the youngest priests in Spain. After his ordination on July 5 in the Diocese of Cartagena, in the Region of Murcia, he has been able to greet with his parents to Pope Leo XIV, who has encouraged him not to lose “never the joy of the priesthood.”
“What a gift from the Lord one month from my priestly ordination to greet the Pope. The Holy Father encouraged me to be faithful no longer to lose the joy of the priesthood in prayer,” he wrote, this Thursday, August 7, the young presbyter in his X account.
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What a gift from the Lord one month from my priestly ordination to greet the Pope. The Holy Father encouraged me to be faithful no longer to lose the joy of the priesthood in prayer. Knowing that my parents came, congratulated them for delivering a son with 24 years to the church 🙏 … pic.twitter.com/bFI52uu4tk
— Miguel Tovar Fernandez. August 7, 2025
Tovar remembers that, after telling him that he has been ordered very recently, Pope Leo XIV said: “Be faithful. Many priests lose joy. Never lose the joy of the priesthood that you will always find through prayer.”
The Blessing of Leo XIV to the parents of the young priest
The priest also told the Pope who traveled to Rome with his parents, to which Leo XIV replied: “Are they there? Tell them come! Congratulations to you for giving a son with 24 years to the Church.”
The Pontiff also told him that he knows Murcia, who prays for the young Murcian hospitalized these days in Rome, and then bless the priest and his parents. “He blessed all three and blessed my stole of diaconal ordination and the first confessions,” he concluded.
Fr. Miguel Tovar is a 24 -year -old Spanish priest, ordered on July 2 in the Diocese of Cartagena (Spain).
In a testimony published days before his ordination, the young presbyter affirmed that “when the Lord calls you, the fear that God will take everything will be taken away. And it is totally the opposite, throughout these years, I have been able to verify that when one gives life to God, it gives you everything.”
Born in Torrealta, a small town in Murcia, Miguel Tovar grew happy with his parents, his twin brother and his older sister, where he grew up in a Christian environment.
The priest shares that he perceived God’s call at age 13, but it was not until 18, in 2019, when he finally entered the major seminar of San Fulgencio.
As presbyteral motto, Miguel chose “his mercy is eternal.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.