HTI Alumni

Francisco Javier Goitía Padilla

Francisco Javier Goitía Padilla

Director for Theological Formation, Seminaries and Schools, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Field of Study: Practical Theology 

The Rev. Francisco Javier Goitía Padilla is the Program Director for Theological Formation, Seminaries and Lay Schools in the Domestic Mission unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Rev. Dr. Goitía Padilla is an ordained minister of the ELCA rostered in the Caribbean Synod. His pastoral ministry began as a lay pastor in 1988 at El Redentor Lutheran Church in Puerto Rico. He obtained an M. Div. in 1995 and an S.T.M. in Reformation History in 2000 at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Later he graduated from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago where he obtained a Th.M. in Lutheran and Latin American Hermeneutics and a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology with a component in homiletics.

As an ordained minister he has served congregations in Puerto Rico and Chicago. The Rev. Dr. Goitía Padilla was professor of theology and homiletics at the Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2017 and its Dean from July 2012 to December 2017. He has served on various committees in our church such as the Ecclesiology Task Force, the Theological Roundtable and the Future Directions Table. The Rev. Dr. Goitía Padilla is married to Denise Vazquez‐ Ortiz and has two children: Javier Andrés and Gabriela Denise.