Fr. Charles Trullols
Spiritual Director & DC Chaplain
Fr. Charles Trullols
Fr. Charles Trullols is the Spiritual Director and DC Chaplain of the Leonine Forum. He is also Director of the Catholic Information Center, appointed by His Eminence Donald Cardinal Wuerl in March 2017. He is also an assistant of the theology department at the Oakcrest School in Virginia. Originally from Barcelona, Spain, where he graduated from the Viaro Global School, he then earned his architecture degree from the School of Architecture of Barcelona. He then moved to Rome where he studied Theology. He earned a PhD in Canon Law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, and worked for four years at the headquarters of Opus Dei.
He was ordained a priest in Rome for the Prelature of Opus Dei in 2006. Following his ordination, he was assigned to work in Granada, Spain as Chaplain of Mulhacén School. In 2008 he moved to the United States and lived in Pittsburgh, PA and in South Bend, IN, where he served the pastoral needs of the Prelature of Opus Dei and exercised his ministry with college students. In 2012 he moved to Chicago and was appointed Spiritual Director of the Prelature of Opus Dei in the Midwest.
Mitch Boersma
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Mitch Boersma
Mitch Boersma is Co-founder and Executive Director of the Leonine Forum. He is also the Chief Operating Officer of the Catholic Information Center (CIC) – an organization committed to making the Catholic Church alive in the hearts and minds of men and women living and working in our nation’s capital. Originally from Colorado, Mitch holds a Bachelors degree in Business from the University of Dallas and a Masters degree in Moral Theology and Ethics from the Catholic University of America. Mitch held research positions at the American Enterprise Institute (Washington, DC) and worked as an independent writer and researcher on several book-length projects. In 2013, Mitch was named one of FOCUS’ (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) 30 under 30 young Catholics, He is a Tertio Millenio Seminar Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a graduate of the Summer Seminar on Catholic Social Teaching from the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. His work has appeared in secular and religious news outlets including RealClearReligion, EWTN, Legatus Magazine, Fox News, The Stream, Verily Magazine, and National Review Online, among others. He and his wife Rosie live in Fairfax, VA with their two children.
Emma Boyle
Director of Operations
Emma Boyle
Emma Boyle serves as the Leonine Forum’s Director of Operations. She is a proud alumna of the first D.C. Leonine cohort from 2014. Prior to joining the Leonine Forum, Emma served as a student life program director, History department chair, and classroom teacher at Saint John Paul the Great High School, where she was also active as a coach and theatre director. She has extensive experience in creating and implementing curricula, leading pilgrimages, and planning retreats and service opportunities. Emma is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Christendom College.
Fr. Arne Panula
Co-Founder (1946-2017)
Fr. Arne Panula
Fr. Arne Panula, 71, a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei, passed away on July 19, 2017, after struggling for many months with cancer. He is survived by his three sisters, Lynne, Amy, and Pat, their husbands, Wynne, Ralph, and John, and eleven nephews and nieces.
Fr. Panula was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota. He attended Harvard University where he was on the crew team. After graduating in 1967 with a B.A. in English Literature, he moved to Rome to study theology where he lived with St. Josemaria Escriva, Opus Dei’s founder. He was ordained a priest in 1973 and earned a doctorate in Theology from the University of Navarre, in Pamplona, Spain. After ordination, he served as chaplain of The Heights School in Washington, D.C. in the mid-1970’s, after which he exercised his ministry for many years in Northern California, working with high school and university students. From 1998-2002 he was Vicar of the Prelature of Opus Dei for the United States, in New York.
From 2007 on he was the Director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. where he carried out a rich and fruitful work of spiritual direction. He also expanded the mission of the Center by creating the Leonine Forum to educate men and women early in their careers in the core tenets of the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church.
Fr. Luke Mata
LA Chaplain
Fr. Luke Mata
Fr. Luke was born in Madrid, Spain in 1966 and is the second child of a family of nine children. His soccer skills and some prayers earned him a scholarship to Bergen Catholic High School in New Jersey. Fr. Luke graduated from Bergen Catholic in 1984 and was admitted into the University of Notre Dame.
After graduating from Notre Dame Fr. Luke worked as the president of Youth Service International while also serving as the United States Coordinator of youth formation for Opus Dei based in New York City. He also served on the organizing committee at the USCCB for the World Youth Day in Denver that would take place in 1993.
Fr. Luke’s theological studies in preparation for the priesthood eventually landed him in Rome, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in theology as well as a Masters in Philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. In 2006 Fr. Mata was ordained to the priesthood, in Rome, by the Bishop Prelate of Opus Dei, Javier Echevarria. In 2008, also at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, he successfully defended his Doctoral Dissertation and was awarded a PhD in Moral Philosophy.
While working on his PhD in Rome Fr. Luke had the great fortune of working in two Synods of Bishops, one with John Paul II and one with Benedict XVI.
Fr. Luke moved to Los Angeles in 2008 and now serves as the Vicar of Opus Dei for the West based in California. He also continues to preach retreats throughout the United States and devotes as much time as he can to providing spiritual direction to lay people, especially busy professional men and women.
Lily Alvarez
LA First Year Fellow Coordinator
Lily Alvarez
Fr. Roger Landry
NYC Chaplain
Fr. Roger Landry
Father Roger Landry works for the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York. Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1999, he is the former pastor of St. Bernadette Parish (2012-2015) in Fall River and of St. Anthony of Padua Parish (2005-2012) in New Bedford, MA, and the former executive editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River (2005-2012). He is an alumnus of Harvard College and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he did graduate work at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family. He was an on-site commentator for EWTN’s coverage of the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis, appears often on various Catholic radio programs, and is national chaplain for Catholic Voices USA. He regularly leads pilgrimages to Rome, the Holy Land, Christian Europe and other sacred destinations and preaches several retreats a year for priests, seminarians, religious and lay faithful. He lectures widely on the thought of Popes Francis, Benedict and John Paul II, especially John Paul II’s theology of the body, writes for many Catholic publications and is the author of the new book Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God.
Jennifer Monsalve
NYC First Year Fellow Coordinator
Jennifer Monsalve
Jennifer K Monsalve is this year’s NYC Leonine Forum First-Year Coordinator, and a proud fellow from the 2018-2019 cohort. She currently runs retreats and spiritual life programs for college students in Jersey City, NJ. As an undergraduate student, she attended Fordham University and studied International Political Economy and Theology. Thereafter, she earned her Master’s degree from the Pontifica Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, while working at the Colombian Bishops Conference. Jennifer has also lived and worked in El Salvador and South Africa. In her spare time, she works with high school students longing to deepen their faith.
Dureid Khamo
NYC Alumni Coordinator
Dureid Khamo
Dureid Khamo is a consultant in the Risk Advisory practice at Dixon Hughes Goodman, LLP in New York City. Dureid’s background is in corporate finance, and private investments for various industries including banking, media and real estate. Dureid grew up in San Diego, California, where he studied Business Administration at CSU San Marcos. In his free time, Dureid enjoys riding jet skis, playing guitar, reading, and playing soccer.
