Edward “Father Edd” Salazar, SJ, is a Jesuit priest who has served in ministry to Brazilian, Portuguese and Hispanic immigrants and refugees, and in hospital chaplaincy. Throughout his years as a Jesuit, he has focused his ministry on parish-based community organizing, the advocacy and defense of immigrants and the poor and preaching a faith that does justice. This year, he is celebrating 50 years as a priest.
Father Salazar was born June 30, 1944, in San Antonio, Texas. He entered the former New Orleans Province of the Jesuits in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, in 1962, and professed his first vows 1964. Fr. Salazar was ordained a priest on June 22, 1974, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Helotes, Texas.
He completed a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and philosophy at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, and a master’s degree in Spanish and Latin American Literature at the Jesuit Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.
His involvement in ministry to immigrants and refugees began in 1973 when he served the Azorean Portuguese immigrant community and Chicano university students in the San Jose-Santa Clara area of California while finishing a Master of Divinity at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. While there, he also was co-founder of an international formation program for young Jesuits, leading them through cultural and linguistic immersion summers of theological and pastoral reflection in Mexico from 1974 to 1978.
Father Salazar’s Hispanic ministry continued through his assignments in several different organizations and dioceses. From 1977 to 1988, he advocated on behalf of Hispanic laity, seminarians, religious women, religious brothers and priests as Regional Director of PADRES [Priests Associated for the Religious, Educational and Social Rights] of Mexican Americans in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Fr. Salazar served as the first episcopal vicar for Hispanics in the Archdiocese of Atlanta from 1988 to 1991, as well as co-founder and the first president of ANSH, EEUU, the National Association of Hispanic Priests, USA, from 1989 to 1992. He began the vocations program for young men from Latin America (Colombia, Mexico and Puerto Rico) for the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
Father Salazar has served as an associate pastor in Houston and El Paso, Texas, as well as in Dothan, Alabama. He has been missioned to retreat ministry at Montserrat Jesuit Retreat House in Texas and at the Ignatius House Jesuit Retreat Center in Georgia.
In 1994-95, he lived his sabbatical year on pilgrimage to Our Lady’s Shrines and ministered to the families of immigrants in the USA in their lands of origin. He visited and gathered for Eucharist the relatives of families he had earlier served in the United States. He traveled to all the Spanish-speaking nations [except Uruguay], also visiting his fellow Jesuits on mission in Brazil.
Father Salazar’s pastoral ministry has also extended to chaplaincy. He was a certified chaplain through the National Association of Catholic Chaplains and served in hospitals in Texas from 1995 to 2006, and in St. Louis from 2014 to 2024. He now continues hospital ministry at Saint Louis University Hospital and pastoral ministry in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese at St. Joseph’s Parish in Manchester, Missouri. He resides at St. Ignatius Hall, the province’s community for senior Jesuits, in Florissant, Missouri.
Father Salazar’s Reflection on 60 Years as a Jesuit from 2022:
As I reviewed this year’s list of jubilarians, I was immediately filled with gratitude for what we have been able to do by the grace of the Risen Christ.
I recalled my many assignments – how, through dialogue, discernment and prayer, I have ministered in over 25 places/spaces.
This has meant trusting God these past 60 years, gradually recognizing that he is continually shaping my life, personality and vision.
An anonymous email message shared with me: “I don’t know who you are, but a LOT of people LOVE YOU!” I welcomed the sentiment and words with humility, and with gratitude that is a constant thread in the fabric of my life.
Someone penned the words, “I love that for you.” Friends and family members have spoken in similar words, as they celebrated with and for me the many events in my Jesuit life, from the day of entrance into the novitiate on August 29, 1962, at the tender age of 18, as I boarded the Sunset Limited train headed for Grand Coteau, La.
They were telling me I am a chosen instrument in the unfolding of God’s Plan (as I ponder the words of the young prophet Jeremiah in Chapter 21, 11-13: “For I know the plans I have for you…”)
To these words I have gratefully responded, “here I am, send me,” as I understood the mission to “go out to all the world and tell the Good News.”
