The path of faith is often fraught with challenges, missteps, and distractions from the connection with God that we seek. As someone in the position of guiding others toward their respective vocations, Father Victor (Vic) Taglianetti, OFM Cap, draws on his own time of desert wandering to help him meet people where they’re at when considering religious life. The vocations director for the Capuchin Franciscans of the Western America (Our Lady of Angels) Province, Father Vic brings both a youthful vibrancy and an openness to this crucial position in his religious community.
Although Father Vic is comfortable in his own skin and dressed in a Capuchin habit these days, spirituality—let alone religion—was not always the focus and direction of his life. Father Vic was raised in Rancho Cucamonga, California, a city located about an hour east of Los Angeles in the Inland Empire region. “I was raised Catholic, and my parents did the best they could to raise me in the faith by bringing me to Sunday Mass and enrolling me in CCD classes,” he says. “I come from a mixed family, my father being Italian and my mother being Mexican, and I am the oldest of three.”
His father’s brand of Catholicism gave the young Vic the impression that God demanded an impossible perfection of believers, “where we were taught we were never worthy to partake in Communion,” he recalls. Over time, a gulf emerged between Vic and the Catholic faith—and religion in general. “I compared myself to others and felt I was being treated unfairly,” Father Vic says. “The perfectionism that my dad wanted from me could never be met, and I projected that image of my dad onto God.”
This led to Father Vic becoming an atheist for some time, “a militant atheist,” even, as he remembers, “always ready to argue with those who believed in God, especially with Christians.” And though Father Vic did well in school and was on a career track (having been a pre-med student at the University of California, San Diego, with a bachelor’s degree in biology), he found himself “consumed with selfishness, and I got sucked into the party and drug scene at school.” Father Vic felt empty inside, but a family Christmas celebration opened the door to a new chapter in his life.
Rediscovering the Beauty of Faith
While spending time alone in his room on Christmas Eve, Father Vic could hear his family members laughing and talking in the living room as they got ready to attend midnight Mass together. Not wanting to miss out, and grappling with the empty feeling he had inside, Father Vic joined his family for Mass that night. The priest who celebrated the Christmas Eve Mass had recently lost his mother, and his emotional connection to the liturgy had a huge impact on Father Vic. Following Mass, Father Vic prayed for the first time in years, asking God to reveal himself in some meaningful way.
Four days later, his prayer was answered, and Father Vic experienced a profound inner conversion. “It was a breakthrough because I thought I always had to earn God’s love through being perfect,” he says. “I had made many mistakes up to that point, yet God still had unconditional love for me. It didn’t make sense at the time, but the love was powerful, and it was real.” Once faith reentered his world, Father Vic also began to hear the call to religious life. As he explored the various options, the Capuchin Franciscans (of the Western America Province) stood out, as they made an effort to invite Father Vic to visit their community. Plus, “I was attracted to their humility and down-to-earth attitude,” he says.
The balance of action and contemplation also drew Father Vic to the Capuchins. “I felt that this mirrored Christ’s life the most because not only did he preach, heal, deliver, and do ministry out with the people, but he also retreated in prayer with his heavenly Father,” he says.
Father Vic began his postulancy in 2012 and entered the priesthood in 2021. During that time, he taught Confirmation and RCIA classes, ministered to homeless and elderly individuals in Berkeley, California, and worked as a chaplain in hospital and prison ministry (at St. Francis Hospital in Westminster, Colorado, and San Quentin State Prison in California, respectively). “The latter two were especially significant for me,” Father Vic says. In both cases, he encountered people who were vulnerable but often open to spiritual growth and direction.
Father Vic is also a talented musician and rapper, and music has been one of his avenues for reaching the youth. “Coming from the IE (the Inland Empire), I was raised with hip-hop music, and it has always been in my blood,” he says. “I didn’t take things seriously until I had my ‘re-version’ back to the Catholic faith and began teaching catechesis for the youth. One day, I had an idea come to me in prayer: ‘Why don’t I try to teach through music?’” St. Francis, whose “Canticle of the Creatures” is believed to be the first work of literature written in the Italian language, might not be a rap icon, but he certainly understood the power of words and art to nudge human hearts toward God.
As Father Vic continues his work of helping people discern a vocation—whether it be marriage, religious life, or something else—the story of St. Francis embracing the leper serves as a source of perpetual inspiration. “When Francis embraced the leper, I believe he was also embracing himself,” Father Vic says. “Being a friar, I have had opportunities to embrace those whom society may see as a leper: prison inmates, the homeless, the sick in hospitals. In my encounters with these people, I feel like I have encountered aspects of myself. And it was in loving these people and seeing the beauty in them that has also helped me to love myself in the way that God intends.”
