Julio De León serves as GIA’s associate editor for Spanish and Bilingual Resources. He is a bilingual educator, composer, choir director, and performer with a longstanding dedication to music ministry and an impressive resumé of professional accomplishments. Skilled on numerous instruments, his specialty is percussion performance. For the past eight years, he has taught music in parochial schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He currently serves at St. Mark School, where he instills in his students a love for music as aform of ministry.

In May 2022, Julio graduated with a Master of Arts degree in Pastoral Theology from Loyola Marymount University. His thesis, titled “Music and the Liturgy: Bridging the Gap between Latino/a Theology, Aesthetics, and Music,” explored the role of liturgical music through the lens of cultural analysis, beauty, and its transcendental nature. Most recently, Julio served as the interim director for the Spanish choir at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. He has ministered in numerous parishes in the Los Angeles area and has performed at such major events as the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress and for the NPM National Convention, where he also served as a clinician in the areas of spirituality, diversity and mentorship. Julio is married to Lesly Palacios Castillo, with whom he has partnered in ministry to their home community of Holy Spirit Church in Los Angeles for over twelve years; together they co-direct the Cristo Vive music ministry, originally founded by Lesly’s parents in
Guatemala in the 1980s.