Our Story
A life changed by mercy. A mission built by showing up.
Traditional Urban Catholic 7 did not begin with a business plan, a building, or a polished ministry strategy. It began with a man confronting the truth about his life — and discovering that the mercy of God could reach him even there.
Before TUC7
There was nowhere left to run.
Eric “E.T.” Tafoya knows what it means for life to go in the wrong direction.
Gang involvement, drugs, violence, and years of destructive choices eventually led to prison and consequences he could not undo. There came a point when excuses stopped working. E.T. had to face what his choices had done — to his life, to other people, and to the people he loved.
Catholicism was not completely foreign to him. He had been baptized, and his grandmother was Catholic. But faith had never become the foundation or structure of his life.
In prison, stripped of the distractions he had used for years, that began to change.
“If I have to do life in here… use me.”
(E.T.)
The Turning Point
Mercy did not erase the past. It changed what came next.
That prayer was not a promise that everything would suddenly become easy. It was the beginning of surrender.
E.T. returned to the Rosary. At one point, without a rosary of his own, he and others made one from a plastic trash bag and knots. The prayers were imperfect. The focus came and went. He kept returning to them anyway.
Over time, the Catholic faith became something more than a belief or a moment of emotion. It became structure.
Confession demanded honesty. The Eucharist taught him to receive a grace he could never earn. The Rosary taught consistency. Scripture challenged him. Discipline began replacing the patterns that had once controlled his life.
That distinction still shapes TUC7 today.
After Prison
Faith had to become something lived.
What started in a cell could not stay there.
After returning home, E.T. continued rebuilding his life around the Catholic faith, his family, discipline, prayer, and service. He began sharing his testimony and spending time with men who understood some of the same struggles, failures, temptations, and consequences he had known himself.
Service became part of that formation.
Showing up for people living on the streets. Bringing food, clothing, prayer, and conversation. Returning to correctional spaces with a very different purpose than the one that had brought him there before. Praying publicly. Gathering men around Scripture. Encouraging men to take responsibility for their spiritual lives.
None of it was about building an image.
It was about showing up.
What Grew From It
One testimony became a brotherhood.
TUC7 grew from the conviction that Catholic faith is not meant to remain theoretical. Men need places where faith can be formed, practiced, tested, and lived.
Form
Build the man.
Through Scripture, prayer, the sacramental life, discipline, honest conversation, and brotherhood.
Witness
Carry the faith into the world.
Through public prayer, Rosary marches, prayer for life, testimony, evangelization, and visible Catholic witness.
Serve
Put faith into action.
Through street outreach, prison ministry, works of mercy, and showing up for people too easily forgotten.
More Than One Man's Story
E.T.’s conversion is where the story begins. It is not where the story ends.
TUC7 is growing into a brotherhood of Catholic men committed to living their faith with consistency, humility, courage, and service.
Some arrive strong in their faith. Some are rebuilding. Some are returning to the Church after years away. Some are still learning what discipleship looks like in everyday life.
No one arrives finished.
The work is to keep becoming the men God is calling us to be — in prayer, in our families, in our parishes, in our communities, and alongside the people who need someone willing to show up.
Traditional Urban Catholic 7
Seven commitments shape the brotherhood.
As TUC7 has grown, seven commitments have come to express the kind of Catholic life this ministry is working to build — not as ideals printed on a wall, but as practices meant to be lived.
The Story Is Still Being Written
Faith in Action.
Boots on the Ground.
TUC7 exists to form men who live the Catholic faith — through prayer, discipline, brotherhood, service, and public witness. Not perfectly. Not for appearances. But faithfully, one day and one act of obedience at a time.