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The Rev. Francis-Hung Q. Le, O.P.
Fr. Francis-Hung Quang Le, O.P., is a Dominican friar from the US Western Dominican Province. Born in Vietnam, he came to America in 1977 as a boatperson,  a refugee; he grew up as a teenager in Santa Barbara, California; he completed his undergraduate studies in electrical and computer engineering at UCSB. In order to support his family in Vietnam he worked as a hardware engineer, designing telecommunication equipment in Silicon Valley and obtained his MSEE degree at Santa Clara University. After seven years working in the electronic field, through the grace of God, he chose to pursue a religious vocation and found a place to live and follow Christ in the spirit of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order. Moved by the grace of God, he made his first profession of vows in August 1997. He learned different languages as tools for his studies and ministry. He spent a year in Mexico City, Mexico, to learn theology in Spanish.
On May 29, 2004, Fr. Francis was ordained as a Catholic priest. In June 2004, he returned to Santa Barbara and celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Raphael Catholic Church, Goleta, California. Fr. Francis became Pastor here at Holy Rosary on September 11, 2011.
In 1999, he began a charitable mission in Lima, Peru. He brought medicine for the sick and the poor; he visited a Dominican health clinic, the very house where St. Martin the Porres was born. During the summers of 2003-2005, he delivered medicines and medical supplies for the poor at Kim Long Charity Clinic, a facility that serves 250 in-out patients per day. The clinic is run by the Sisters of the Congregations of Daughters of Mary Immaculate in Hue, Vietnam, the very sisters who taught him in kindergarten. In May 2006, he returned to Vietnam with a small group of parishioners who were, and still, are medical doctors, nurses, and friends to continue the mission of love; the mission that is guided by faith and hope in Jesus Christ. Today, this mission is known as Holy Rosary International Medical Mission, a non-profit organization dedicated to serve the sick and the poor in third world countries. |
