Vocation Week • The Augustinian Recollect Bishop Carlos María Domínguez describes his vocation, from when he was an altar boy, to his current episcopate in Argentina. “Being an Augustinian Recollect is the most beautiful way I know to follow Jesus; Also, the most difficult.
My vocation as an Augustinian Recollect, one could say, began in my childhood. At the age of 10, I began to be an altar server and there grew the desire for doing what the priest did. That was my initial motivation that, later, was modified and deepened.
In my teenage years, I began to discover the fascination for the person of Jesus Christ and to follow him. The motivation, now, was not so much to do what the priest did, but to follow Jesus and imitate him in his way of life.
It never crossed my mind not to be anything other than an Augustinian Recollect. I studied all primary and secondary school at the Augustinian College, surrounded by the testimony of many friars. I wanted to be like them. The figure and history of Saint Augustine marked my formation at the College.
In the last years of High School, I began to visit the Saint Ezekiel Moreno Seminary of the Augustinian Recollects, which was in the town of San Andrés. There I met the seminarians and the religious in charge of formation, whom I began to visit on weekends.
The Lord had placed signs and people that were confirming my vocation to be an Augustinian Recollect. On February 11, 1984, I entered the seminary and began the postulancy. I left my family and began to walk with the family of the Augustinian Recollects.
I have always been attracted to the following of Jesus, shared with the brothers. Community life, a pillar of the Augustinian Recollect charism, was the way I discovered that I had to follow Jesus.
Therefore, I can say that it is the most beautiful way I know to follow Jesus, but also the most difficult. And so, I tried to transmit it in my youth and vocational apostolate. Seek God in a community of brothers; pray together; share activities; exercise forgiveness and fraternal correction; caring for each other and encouraging each other in the consecration are unique and unrepeatable moments.
The strength of the Holy Spirit is felt, bringing together men of different cultures, languages, histories, characters and temperaments and making of all one soul and one heart directed towards God.
I always say that when God asks you for a new YES, that YES is always stronger, deeper and more compromising than the previous one. I thought God had asked me enough yeses. But I realized that God always asks for more. Because I had to respond to the YES of the episcopate, which was very difficult.
God asked me to leave the land where I was working at ease; that I had to leave my religious family to which I had given myself wholeheartedly; to go to an unknown place, far from the friars, and to experience a reality that until now was foreign to me.
But God does not let himself be outdone in generosity. When He asks you for something, he gives you what you need to be able to live it faithfully. And so, I began my episcopal ministry in the Archdiocese of San Juan de Cuyo, a Diocese with an extension of almost 90,000 square kilometers, with 43 parishes and more than 400 chapels.
Contact with the People of God, sharing faith, life, joys, and sorrows made me give myself with all my strength to the people, to the priests and to all those who needed me. When I arrived in San Juan, I told the people that I did not come to give a hand but to give my whole life, so I did. I was happy in San Juan, learning to be a bishop.
But then came another YES stronger than the previous one: move to the Diocese of San Rafael, 400 kilometers south of San Juan, in the Andes. This YES was strong not only because I had to leave San Juan (although I was still auxiliary bishop, I had to spend most of my time living in San Rafael) but because the Pope asked me, as Apostolic Administrator, to help a convulsed Diocese to walk, with problems, tensions, wounds, and grudges.
It was necessary to bring peace and reassure San Rafael. And with the grace of God – it was God who did everything – we were taking the helm of that convulsed boat. The Pope saw that it was necessary for me to continue there, and on February 11, he named me Diocesan Bishop of San Rafael: another stronger YES.
I have always tried to live my episcopal ministry from my Augustinian Recollect charism. I cannot stop living the lifestyle that I professed until death. Logically, circumstances have changed a lot. I live 1,000 kilometers from the nearest Augustinian Recollect community; I miss community life as I now live alone. But I try to encourage community moments among the priests of the Diocese and thus be able to inject them with something of my Recollect charism.
I cannot deny that the life of a bishop is full of problems. But moments of happiness and fraternity also abound when one realizes that, in what one must do day by day, if he puts his heart into it and wants to embrace God’s will, God takes you by the hand, supports you, comforts and strengthens you.
Biographical Summary
Carlos María Domínguez was born on December 23, 1965, in San Martín, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He completed his primary and secondary studies at the Colegio Agustiniano, in San Andrés. In 1984 he entered the Saint Ezekiel Moreno Seminary of the Augustinian Recollects in San Andrés.
In 1986 he completed the novitiate in Burgos (Spain). On February 1, 1987, he made his religious profession in San Andrés, Argentina, where he also made his solemn profession on March 15, 1992. On September 12, 1992, he received the diaconate in Villa Maipú and priestly ordination on March 13, 1993, in Buenos Aires.
Carlos María has a degree in Theology with a Pastoral specialization, Professor of Theology and Professor of Primary Education. Between the years 1990-1991 he was Director of Studies at the San José Technical School, Villa Maipú; in 1991-1995 he served as a deacon and then was Parochial Vicar at Nuestra Señora de Luján Parish, San Andrés.
From 1995-2003 he was a vocation promoter based in Santa Fe. From 2003-2006 he was prior of Saint Ezekiel Moreno Seminary, San Andrés. From 2006-2012 he was Provincial Vicar of Argentina, based in Buenos Aires.
From 2012 to 2015 he was Prior of the Augustinian Minor Seminary, Guadalajara, Spain. From 2015-2018 he was Prior Provincial of the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanueva of the Augustinian Recollects, based in Madrid. From 2018-2019 he was Provincial Vicar of Spain.
On April 22, 2019, he was named Titular Bishop of Vita and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Juan de Cuyo, Argentina, by Pope Francis. He was consecrated bishop on June 29, 2019, in San Juan, Argentina.
On February 5, 2022, he was named Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina. A year later, on February 11, 2023, he was named bishop of said Diocese.
Currently he is the bishop responsible for Youth Ministry and a member of the Economic Affairs Council of the Argentina Episcopal Conference. In the Order of Augustinian Recollects, he is part of the Ministerium Sapientiae team.
