A Honolulu-born man of part-Hawaiian ancestry has been ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Cardinal Roger Mahony ordained Kaimuki High School graduate Preston Patrick Passos on May 31 in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. He celebrated his first Mass in Hawaii on June 15 at St. Augustine Church in Waikiki.

His first assignment is as an associate pastor at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in North Hollywood, which he described as being “about two minutes from Universal Studios.”

“The people here are very supportive and are almost spoiling me,” he said.

Father Passos is the only child of William Passos of Las Vegas and Debbie Ann Passos of Ewa Beach. He turns 35 on Aug. 8.

He is still on cloud nine.

“To bring the sacraments to the people and to bring them closer to God is very rewarding and fulfilling,” the newly-ordained priest said.

Father Passos, who is of Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese ancestry, grew up in Kapahulu. He attended Waialae Elementary, Kaimuki Intermediate and Kaimuki High.

He was active parishioner in his parish of St. Augustine in Waikiki and was inspired by the example of the Sacred Hearts fathers, brothers and sisters who served there.

“My parish family was my second family,” he said.

After high school he worked for six years in Waikiki for Budget Rent-a-Car. But a rewarding experience volunteering in campus ministry at Saint Louis School in Kaimuki led him to join the Marianists, the order that runs the school. At age 25, he entered its pre-novitiate program in West Hills in southern California.

He eventually left the Marianists and in 1997 was the invited by a priest to work in his parish of Our Lady of the Valley in Canoga Park.

He was so attracted to diocesan parish life in Los Angeles that he decided to enter the college seminary there.

“It was just a booming archdiocese with so many challenges,” he said.

He attended St. John College Seminary in Camarillo from 1999 to 2003, followed by four years of theology studies and one year of pastoral internship.

Reached last week by cell phone in Los Angeles, Father Passos said that life as a priest so far “has been very fulfilling.”

Reconciling people with God “is one of the best parts of our ministry,” he said.

“It is certainly a difficult life,” he said, “but a wonderful one.”

Being a college seminarian while the priest sex abuse scandal was exploding was particularly difficult, Father Passos recalls. Many seminarians left.

“It was tough,” he said.

He said that his years working as an adult outside the church probably gave him an advantage over some of the younger students. He knew that “it was just a matter of sticking with it.”

Even a crisis that serious was not going to be “the demise of the church,” he said. “We learn throughout history that our mistakes would make us stronger.”

Father Passos’ mother, Debbie Ann Passos, attended the ordination with many other Hawaii relatives.

“I am proud of him, and very thankful. It is his dream come true,” she said.

“And mine, too,” she added.

She said her son was very active at St. Augustine Church beginning as an altar boy at around age 10 when he was living in Kapahulu with his grandmother who took him to church all the time.

“I think it was his calling,” she said of his ordination, noting that the name Preston comes from the word “priest,” something she discovered years after he was born. His father named him, she said.

As for her son serving in Los Angeles, Debbie Passos said, “He loves it up there.”

“Maybe one day he will come back” to serve in Hawaii, she said, but for now “there is more opportunity up there.”

“And we are always visiting,” she said.