05/01/2026
The two recipients of this year’s prestigious Amar es Entregarse award, Edgardo Juarez and St. Junipero Serra House of Formation, both have a great commitment to help young Catholics in the diocese become the future leaders of the Church. The award, named after Bishop Emeritus Gerald Barnes’ Episcopal Motto: “Amar Es Entregarse” (Love is the total giving of oneself) will be bestowed upon the recipients at the 25th Annual Bishop’s Dinner on May 23 at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort in Palm Desert.
Edgardo Juarez
“I still remember the first time I experienced the Church as a place of belonging. As a young teenager navigating a new country and a new culture, my local parish, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Chino, became a second home,” Juarez recalls. “That experience did more than shape my faith, it ignited a lifelong commitment to ensure that every young person encounters a Church where they are known, where they belong, and where they can encounter the living Christ.”
Juarez has been the Associate Director of Mission and Catholic Identity with the Diocesan Office of Catholic Schools since July 2024. Before this he served as the Director of the Diocesan Office of Ministry with Young Catholics from 2016-2024. Juarez was also a Vicariate Coordinator in the Diocesan Office of Catechetical Ministry from 2013-2016. Prior to this he found his passion for ministering to young Catholics at his home parish where he did Youth and Young Adult Ministry, Catechetical Ministry and Quinceañera XV Ministry and even joined the Diocesan Young Adult Ministry and Pastoral Juvenile Committees in his early years of lay ministry.
“Over the past 20 years of ministry, I have witnessed how the Holy Spirit continues to guide our Church in accompanying young people. Through transformative listening processes we have learned to listen more deeply and in that listening, we have come to understand something essential, to accompany young people means to invite them to share their gifts.”
Juarez has ministered alongside many women and men who serve young people across parishes, schools and college campuses. He participated in V Encuentro, the Synod on Young People, and the Synod on Synodality, to listen to the youth more deeply.
“Across our diocese, I have seen communities of young people living the Gospel in creative and powerful ways. They show us every day that Christ is alive,” Juarez said. “I have witnessed firsthand how our young people are helping us build what Pope Francis called ‘una Iglesia para todos, todos, todos,’ a Church for all. We thank God for their witness, and we celebrate the seeds of faith that have taken root and are bearing abundant fruit.”
Juarez thanks young Catholics for responding with extraordinary generosity during pivotal moments such as the pandemic, where young Catholics helped livestream Masses, led virtual gatherings and ushered communities into a new era of digital evangelization.
“To our young people, you are not just the future of the Church, you are the now of God,” Juarez said. “You are seen. You are loved. You are called. Do not be afraid to say ‘yes’ to what God is asking of you.”
St. Junipero Serra House of Formation
One of the major challenges facing the Diocese of San Bernardino from its earliest beginnings was the number of priests needed to serve the growing population. In order to encourage vocations, founding Bishop Phillip F. Straling opened the Junipero Serra House of Formation in Riverside in 1986. This college level formation house for seminarians would allow the students to remain in the Diocese during the early years of their training.
“Our founding Bishop, Bishop Phillip F. Straling, had a very strong commitment to youth and young adults,” said Monsignor Gerard Lopez, Vicar General and one of the first seminarians to attend Serra House at its Riverside location. “He was a very creative bishop with great vision since very few dioceses at the time, in the 1980s, had a college seminary preparation program. There was a strong commitment to the vision of faith for the future.”
This new idea of having a college-level seminary, Serra House, helped guide and form the future priests of the diocese.
“Weekends we had spiritual talks and retreats and time together, it helped a lot,” said Father David Andel, Judicial Vicar of the diocese, who lived at the Riverside Serra House location from 1988-91. “Serra House is great for that because when you’re leaving, when you’re graduating college, you’re thinking, ‘am I being called to further studies, the major seminary, and theology?’ Part of it is discerning that. Serra House was a great place to do that.”
After years of existence in Riverside, the seminary community moved to a new 1.5-acre campus in the foothills of Grand Terrace in 2005. Serra House is currently led by Very Rev. Dr. Javier Gonzalez Cabrera, Rector.
“Joining Serra House felt like a larger home away from home, hosting men of diverse ages, experiences, and ethnicities,” said Father Michael Arinze Ezeoke, who lived at the Grand Terrace Serra House as a seminarian and now serves as Director of Community Life & Coordinator of Pastoral Formation there. “It was both a sacred and safe space to be stretched in all dimensions of formation, spiritual, human, intellectual, pastoral, and communal. We were not alone.”
Today, Serra House hosts young people from across the diocese every Thursday evening and Saturday morning. Fr. Ezeoke says the growth he observes is palpable.
“Young women who are discerning religious life are guided by religious sisters from various communities. Young men and women serve together caring for the sick and consoling the grieving at our Catholic cemetery,” he says. “And in all these, a community of faith leaders is being built, leaders of today who actively proclaim the Gospel with compassion, humility, and love.”