Fr. Danny García Castro
Administrator
Office Phone: (562) 923-3246
Email: FrDannyGarcia@olphdowney.com
Fr. Danny Garcia Castro was born in Los Angeles, California on November 7, 1974. I grew up in a strong Catholic family. My mother made sure I prayed every night before I went to sleep and would take me to Mass every Sunday. I attended Saint Paul Catholic School (Los Angeles) and it was there in the middle of recess where I knew God was calling me to the priesthood. I was eleven years of age. My 6th Grade teacher came up to me and said, “Danny, I see Jesus in you. I see Jesus in your eyes.” Her words had a deep impact on me ever since that day. It awoke in me the vocation God had already planted in me. A day later, the pastor approached me and asked if I had ever considered becoming a priest. Upon graduating from 8th Grade, I entered Our Lady Queen of the Angels Seminary (San Fernando Valley) in 1988 for several months, but then transferred to Cathedral High School. After graduating from Cathedral High School (1992), I went to Saint Mary’s College (Moraga, CA) where I received my B.A. in Art Studies (1997).
I worked for the Catholic Elementary Schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 1998 to 2014. I taught at Our Lady of Lourdes School for seven years, two of those years as Vice-Principal. While teaching, I attained my teaching credentials and Masters in Catholic School Administration from Loyola Marymount University. I was Principal at Saint Malachy School in South Central Los Angeles for nine full years (2004 – 2012). I was teacher/vice principal for one year at Resurrection School in East Los Angeles. It was there, where God called me once again to the priesthood. I entered St. John’s Seminary in the fall of 2014 and was ordained priest on August 8th of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic.
As a newly ordained, I was assigned as Associate Pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in September of 2020. I was then assigned as Administrator of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church on July of 2022. This past October of 2022, I was selected by my fellow priests in Deanery 17 to serve as their Priest Liaison to the newly launched Ministry for Racial Relations in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.