Instituto Fe y Vida is a Lasallian Catholic ministry dedicated to the faith formation and leadership development of Latino youth, young adults, families, and pastoral leaders.
Each summer, pastoral leaders from across the United States and beyond gather at a university or institute of higher learning for an intensive week of formation, prayer, community, leadership development, and mission.
A thriving parish is more than a place people attend. It is a community where people belong, encounter, participate, lead, and live their faith together.
(in Spanish)
Adquirir conocimientos y habilidades pastorales y catequéticas para la Pastoral Juvenil —con adolescentes y de jóvenes— y establecer los cimientos para el Programa de Teología y pastoral prácticas para líderes y asesores, los seminarios de formación teológica y pastoral, y la implementación del Modelo Profetas de Esperanza.
To form Hispanic pastoral ministers, young leaders, and parents for personal development, faith formation, and leadership in the Church and society.
A Catholic Church that nurtures the faith and hope of Latino youth and their families, promotes a Christian way of life, and accompanies parents as they educate their children in faith.
Instituto Fe y Vida is a Lasallian Catholic ministry dedicated to the faith formation and leadership development of Latino youth, young adults, families, and pastoral leaders. Born in the 1990s from a vision for comprehensive Hispanic youth and young adult ministry, Fe y Vida developed a groundbreaking system of pastoral formation that has prepared generations of leaders for service in the Church and society. In 2015, Fe y Vida established its institutional home at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois, strengthening a relationship rooted in shared Lasallian values: faith, education, community, justice, service, and the formation of the whole person. Today, Fe y Vida’s official headquarters is located at the historic Fitzpatrick House, where it has its offices and the home of its new podcast studio.
After more than three decades, Fe y Vida continues to serve its founding mission while responding to a changing Church and a new generation.
We are forming leaders for church and society.
We are creating new approaches to evangelization.
We are bringing Scripture to life.
We are connecting communities across borders.
And we continue going outward—to the places and people where the Church is called to listen, encounter, and serve.
Instituto Fe y Vida was born from the pastoral realities of Latino young people in the United States and the vision of the Lasallians (Christian Brothers of the Midwest). Today, that mission reaches far beyond geographic boundaries.
Our ministry connects parish communities, dioceses, universities, bishops, pastoral leaders, publishers, movements, and Catholic organizations across the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Vatican, and Europe. Through relationships and collaborative initiatives with the Lasallians, Church and Bishops Council in Latin America (CELAM), international and Hispanic Catholic organizations, Lilly Endowment, and Vatican ministries, Fe y Vida participates in a growing global conversation about young people, Scripture, evangelization, leadership, migration, family life, culture, and missionary discipleship.
We bring the experiences of Latino communities into those conversations—and bring the richness of the global Church back into the communities we serve.
We go where the stories are.
Jesus continually moved toward the margins. So must we.
Fe y Vida's ministry has always been rooted in encounter—with immigrant families, underserved adolescents, young adults searching for belonging and purpose, parents navigating life between cultures, pastoral leaders serving with limited resources, and communities whose voices are too often absent from conversations about the future of the Church.
We believe some of the most important stories of faith are being written at the peripheries.
Our role is not simply to bring ministry there. It is to listen, accompany, learn, form leaders, and help those communities recognize the gifts they already carry.
For more than three decades, Instituto Fe y Vida has believed in the gifts, faith, leadership, creativity, and potential of Latino young people and the communities that accompany them.
The Church is changing.
A new generation is emerging.
New stories are being written.
Come walk with us.
