WHO We Got To Know in July 2026

Holy Family's Pastor, Father Martin Nguyen. Father Nguyen was born in Vietnam. He is a pastor, advocate for special needs families, and a priest whose life has been shaped by immigration, personal conversion, and a deep devotion to the Eucharist. He arrived in the United States in 2006 at the age of sixteen, having never left Vietnam before or traveled on an airplane, and settled in Orlando with his family. His journey took him from Holy Family Catholic Church, where he first served as an altar server, to seminary formation at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, and eventually to his ordination in 2016 at St. James Cathedral. He now serves as Pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church and School, the same parish where he first found community as a young immigrant, and holds additional roles as Chancellor for Canonical Affairs and Judicial Vicar for the Diocese of Orlando. If you ask those who know him, they will tell you he leads with humility, warmth, and a genuine closeness to the people around him. Whether he is welcoming families of children with special needs, encouraging parishioners to return to Mass, or reflecting openly on his own struggles and growth, Father Nguyen continues to serve with the kind of honesty and personal presence that makes people feel they are not walking alone.

Tony Moghaddam has spent much of his working life around homes—but not only from the polished side presented in photographs and property listings. As the owner of Light-Tech Inc., he built more than two decades of experience in electrical contracting, lighting and residential construction. He remains an actively licensed Texas master electrician, a qualification first issued to him in 2004. That background gives Tony an unusually practical foundation for his work in real estate. He understands that a house is both a major financial decision and a physical structure made up of systems, materials and workmanship. While his role as a broker is distinct from that of an inspector or contractor, years spent working within homes have taught him to ask grounded questions, notice important details and help clients think beyond finishes and first impressions. Tony also understands moving from personal experience. Having lived in four countries across three continents and moved more than eighteen times, he knows that buying or selling a home is rarely just a transaction. It often represents a new job, a growing family, an unfamiliar city or the beginning of an entirely different chapter. Houston has been his home since 1994, and today, as Broker and Owner of Texas Advance Realty, he combines local experience, construction knowledge and direct communication to guide people from the beginning of a decision through to its completion. His own description of that approach is refreshingly straightforward: he does not work from nine to five; he works from start to finish. Beneath the line is a pragmatic philosophy—remain available, communicate clearly and take responsibility for helping clients reach the other side of what can be a complicated and deeply personal process.

Fr. Emmanuel Akalue has a way of staying with people. Those who have spent time around him describe a priest who is dedicated, warm, and genuinely influential, someone who feels less like a figure behind the altar and more like family. One former altar server from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Onicha-Olona, Nigeria, who grew up learning the faith under Fr. Emmanuel's care, put it simply: "You sowed the seed of Catholicism into my life, and today it has blossomed." That young server is now a parish laity president. Fr. Emmanuel hails from Nigeria, the second of ten siblings, and was ordained on August 20, 1994. He went on to earn a Master's Degree in Theology with a specialization in Catechetics from the Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, and has served in several parishes across the Diocese of Orlando since 2004. Most recently, he served at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Winter Park before being appointed pastor of St. Augustine Catholic Church in Casselberry, a place that also happens to be the homebase of something very close to his heart. Ask anyone who has been to the African Community Mass in the Diocese of Orlando and they will tell you it feels like going home. That is Fr. Emmanuel's doing. When then-Bishop Thomas Wenski asked him in 2008 to organize a monthly celebration for the growing African and Caribbean community in Central Florida, what started as a small gathering grew into something that drew more than two hundred people, filled with lively music, the tapping of drums, and colorful clothing that brought a piece of home to a new country. COVID shut it down, but Fr. Emmanuel brought it back, moving it from parish to parish until it found its footing again. Now, with his move to St. Augustine, the Mass is returning to Casselberry where it all began. You can also hear him weekly on Divine Mercy Radio 920AM, where he tackles the New Evangelization and Catholic Apologetics with the same warmth and directness he brings to everything. Fellow Nigerian priest Father Kenneth Onyeabor put it best: "It is like a communion we share together. I am happy to be part of this wonderful family."

There is something about the way Fr. Rafal Kandora landed in Summerfield, Florida, that tells you everything you need to know about the kind of priest he is. His "yes" to the Lord carried him from his native Poland to the streets of Manhattan, and eventually to a quiet stretch of Marion County where cattle farms sit alongside new housing developments. It is the kind of journey that only makes sense through faith, and the people around him can see it. Those who know him describe a warm, dedicated, and approachable pastor, the kind of priest who makes you feel like you belong the moment you walk through the door. Fr. Rafal is a member of the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, a contemplative-active order founded in the thirteenth century and known around the world for its devotion to Our Lady of Czestochowa. He was formed in that tradition in Poland before answering a call to serve abroad, first in New York and then in the growing communities of Central Florida. Beyond his role as pastor, Fr. Rafal serves as the Fourth Definitor on the Provincial Council of the Pauline Fathers in the United States, contributing to the governance of Pauline communities from the American motherhouse in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, to the parishes they serve across the country. Fr. Rafal is the kind of pastor who pays attention to what is happening around him and responds with his whole heart. When young families began moving into the Summerfield area, drawn by new communities like Middleton on the outskirts of The Villages, he did not just welcome them at Mass and hope for the best. He went looking for the right person to help build something for them, and found Edith McDaniel, a retired director of religious education who had run programs of seven hundred or more students in Boston. McDaniel came out of retirement because she believed in what Fr. Rafal was trying to do. Together they launched faith formation classes, added a Liturgy of the Word for children, and began planning Vacation Bible School, all for a parish that had never needed any of it before. In 2023, six children received the Sacrament of First Holy Communion at St. Mark, a first in the parish's history. McDaniel put it simply: "It's a very open parish. We recognize all of us are getting older and we need these children and families to keep this church going." That openness starts with Fr. Rafal. The parishioners love seeing the young families in the pews, and he is the reason they are there. When the new Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Cemetery opened in nearby Oxford, just four miles from St. Mark, Fr. Rafal was among the priests who came out to see it for himself, sharing the excitement of his parishioners about having a sacred resting place so close to home. He is a long way from Poland, but Fr. Rafal Kandora is right where he is supposed to be.

Fr. Carlos Bedoya is the kind of pastor who turns a Saturday in December into something no one forgets. When his twenty-eighth ordination anniversary landed on the same day as the parish's annual International Festival, he did not separate the two. He celebrated both, because that is who Fr. Carlos is: a man who believes every good thing deserves to be shared. A Colombian native who came to the United States as an immigrant, Fr. Carlos is a graduate of St. John Vianney and was ordained on December 1, 1990. Over the years that followed, he served across the Diocese of Orlando, including as pastor of St. Clare in Deltona, before being named the sixteenth pastor of St. Mary of the Lakes in 2018. What you notice about Fr. Carlos is how much he genuinely loves where he is. He loves the history of his parish, a hilltop church in Eustis dedicated in 1912. He loves walking people through the small museum behind the sacristy, pointing out old photos and telling the story of the three churches the community has had. "Going to the museum is like stepping back into time, 100 years ago," he has said, and you can hear in it that this is not a duty for him but a joy. He loves his Colombian roots and finds ways to share them, like introducing a six-foot Santo Cristo Yacente into the parish's Good Friday procession, a tradition close to his heart from Latin American culture, and the church was packed for it. He loves taking people on pilgrimage, and has traveled with parishioners and families like the Demarrés all the way to Assisi, Italy. He added vestments belonging to Msgr. Manuel Fernandez, the first pastor to offer Spanish Masses for the Hispanic community, to the parish museum, not as an artifact but as a way to honor the people who came before him. Now thirty-five years into his priesthood, Fr. Carlos is still the kind of priest who sees a reason to celebrate in just about everything.

Fr. Matthew MacKenzie is the kind of priest people say they knew was special from the moment they met him. Those who hear him preach talk about sermons that come straight from the heart, the kind that leave you proud to call him your priest. One parishioner called him a "super hero man of God," and another said simply, "I am so impressed by his sermons. God bless." What makes his story different is that Fr. Matthew did not come to Christ the King Anglican Church from somewhere else. He grew up here. An Ocala native, he is a graduate of Grace Christian School, the church's own primary outreach ministry, which means the very community that formed him is the one he now leads. After graduating from the University of South Florida in 2010, he came right back and joined the staff as the Youth Minister. He stayed in that role for thirteen years, walking alongside young people as they grew up in the faith, before graduating from Asbury Theological Seminary in 2023 and being ordained a priest. There is something rare about a person who grows up in a place, leaves to be educated, and then chooses to come back and give everything to the community that raised him. That is who Fr. Matthew is. He has a heart for people and loves nothing more than seeing the body of Christ work together in unity and grow together in their love of Jesus. Thirteen years of youth ministry gave him a deep understanding of what it means to meet people where they are, and that same instinct carries into everything he does as rector. He is not just the leader of Christ the King Anglican Church. He is one of its own, a kid from Ocala who found his calling in the same pews where he once sat, and who now speaks from that same place with a warmth and sincerity that his people feel every Sunday.

Father Pat, as he prefers to be called, still carries the farm with him. The fourth of twelve children raised on a 160-acre spread in County Clare, Ireland, he grew up milking cows, tending crops, and praying the rosary with his family every night before bed. He describes himself as a shy boy, but the kind of shy that listened, watched, and learned how things grow. "Giving is what we grew up with," he has said. "Everybody is part of a team. We just had to cooperate with God and bring God's gifts to the family and community." That quiet teamwork shaped everything about the priest he would become. He was ordained on June 13, 1965, and came to Florida knowing little about the state beyond its sunshine. He served several assignments before arriving at Blessed Trinity Parish in Ocala in 1988, and he has called it home ever since. Those who know him describe a man who is devout, honorable, and trustworthy, the kind of priest who will show up at your hospital bedside in the middle of the night without thinking twice, the kind people call when it matters most and who never hesitates to come. What started on a small farm in Ireland followed Father Pat across the ocean. He believes that if you are tuned into God, you will see the opportunities, and he has spent decades living that out. Under his care, the parish embraced a stewardship way of life, grew its school to over 660 students, and opened a 24/7 Perpetual Adoration Chapel that has been attended every single hour for more than thirty years. When a Ugandan sister at the school shared a photo of her village church, a tiny hut of sticks and mud, the parish raised $185,000 to build a real one. That single moment grew into a mission that now spans 32 village churches, 22 schools, 40 deep water wells, medical clinics, and over 120 college graduates who are now teachers, doctors, and nurses. Father Pat wrote about it in his 2023 book, "God is Able." "God gives me people who believe and help me," he says, "and by the time we're finished, we have more than we need."