BY PRISCILLA GREEAR

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--A chance meeting in a library in Colombia led Father Samuel Porras-Gomez of Medellin to the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Father Porras-Gomez had earned the American equivalent of a bachelor's degree in philosophy at San Bonaventura University in Bogota in 1990 when he met Father Richard Kieran of Atlanta. The future priest was working at a library in Medellin in which Father Kieran was looking for a book. Through his vocations work, Father Kieran was able to entice him to come to the United States and eventually to serve as a priest in the Atlanta area.

His first assignment is as a parochial vicar at St. Joseph Church in Dalton.

Father Porras-Gomez, who is 31, first felt inspired to love and serve God as a seven-year-old boy through the sincere words and holy actions of Father Ramon Arcila, a priest at his church in the southern Medellin neighborhood of Sabaneta. At 11 he recalls wholeheartedly asking his parents to attend seminary. He remembers telling others in his youth of his desire to become a missionary. At 17 a priest convinced his mother to permit him to attend seminary; he ventured from his familiar hometown to attend San Bonaventura and then to study theology for one year at Pontificia Bolivariana.

In 1992 at the age of 26 he arrived in the U.S. He began studying theology and immersing himself in English in the fall of 1993 at Mt. St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md. He graduated from the seminary this spring and recently returned to St. Joseph's Church in Dalton to begin his ministry.

Father Porras-Gomez was drawn to minister in the Archdiocese of Atlanta out of "the great need to work with the Hispanic community," and also liked the organization of the church in this area. He credits Msgr. Don Kenny, archdiocesan vocations director, and others with providing needed support in this time of transition.

"I feel this is a great challenge and I'm going to do my best for the diocese and for the people of God," he said.

Yet as the love of God reaches out to those of all hues and languages, Father Porras-Gomez hopes to extend his ministry to both the Hispanics and Americans in the congregation he serves and to unite them into one community.

In this spirit his first Mass was celebrated bilingually in Spanish and English on June 8 at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center in Dalton.

From a large family of six brothers and six sisters, Father Porras-Gomez was grateful that three sisters and four nephews from Puerto Rico and Colombia could attend the ordination. His mother, Magdalena Gomez, died in 1989. His sister, Martha, helped him to vest at the ordination.