Fr. David Bello, OP
01/14/1946 - 04/21/2024
Fr. David (John Peter Salaices) Bello, a Dominican friar of the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, died peacefully on April 21, 2024, in Mexicali, Mexico, surrounded by friars, sisters and lay members of the Order and dear friends.
Fr. David was born January 14, 1946, to Juan Palas Bello and Micaela Salaices, in Sacramento, CA. He attended elementary and high school in Stockton, CA, and graduated from Edison Sr. High School in 1963. He contacted the Dominicans while still in high school, and entered the novitiate of the Western Dominican province in Kentfield, CA. After professing solemn vows in 1970, he completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of San Francisco. He was sent to southern California to direct a camp operated by the Dominicans, and two years later began teaching high school.
Discerning a call to ministerial priesthood, he returned to studies in 1977 and earned an MA at Loyola-Marymount University and a Master of Divinity at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology in Berkeley. He spent a year of studies with the Mexican Dominicans in Mexico City and was ordained a priest March 20, 1981, in San Francisco.
When he was discerning a religious vocation in high school, he mentioned an interest in missionary work, and after his ordination as a priest, this desire began to be fulfilled. He was sent to Nuestra Señora del Rosario parish in Mexicali, Mexico, which the province had recently begun to administer among the poorest citizens of the city. He remained there four years and then, in 1985, was elected prior of the Priory of St. Albert the Great in Oakland, CA. After serving a term, he was appointed master of students in 1988 and held that office for six years.
Fr. David returned to Mexicali as the superior of the community and pastor of a new parish on the edge of the city, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. The parish extended thirty miles into the desert and served over 30,000 impoverished people. Mass was celebrated in an unfinished church and on two additional undeveloped lots in the countryside. The friars rented a house among their parishioners.
Over the next decade, under his leadership and with the enthusiasm and sacrifices of the parishioners, three more chapels were constructed, and the parish church completed. Except for six years of ministry at Holy Rosary Parish, Antioch, from 2010 to 2016, Fr. David served the community in Mexicali until his death. Once, when asked if he felt his life was threatened there, he responded, “No, but my sense of comfort and security, and the illusion of power I felt as a Dominican priest is broken.”
He was preceded in death by his parents, a younger brother, and a sister who died in infancy. He is survived by his sister, Teresa (Bello) Jones and brother-in-law Michael, of Elk Grove, CA.
A vigil with rosary and vespers will be held at St. Dominic Catholic Church, 475 East I Street, Benicia, CA, on Thursday, May 2 at 7:30 PM. A funeral Mass will be held at the same location Friday, May 3 at 11:30 AM. Burial will follow at St. Dominic’s cemetery in Benicia. A memorial fund has been established to honor Fr. David. Gifts will support the education of Fr. David’s Dominican brothers still in formation. Please donate online at https://opwest.org/frdavidbello