For almost two decades, Ramuel Villardo has trained in the art of Muay Thai.

Year after year, he’s dedicated countless hours to the combat sport known as “The Art of Eight Limbs” or Thai boxing. Whether dishing out heavy shots in the clinch, resetting his breathing or pressing forward in the ring with impeccable footwork, Villardo has given much of his life to the discipline. 

Yet on any given weekday, the same man, no matter how bruised and calloused from years of the sport’s fierce competition, can be found walking the halls of Covenant House Toronto. There, he works not as a professional fighter, but as its pastoral and spiritual care advisor. Since 2018, Villardo has called the downtown youth shelter home, working with young people whose lives have already sustained far harder blows than any one opponent could strike. 

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A four-time Canadian national champion, devout Catholic, spiritual chaplain and self-described corner man for at-risk youth, Villardo has been dubbed “The Fighting Minister” and has steadily built a vocation where the lessons of physical combat and spiritual compassion are not opposites, but rather similar disciplines that can be channelled to change lives for the better. 

Born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area, Villardo grew up in a household long-steeped in both martial arts and faith. His father, a lifelong practitioner of Filipino martial arts, has also spent decades serving as a Catholic deacon. As he recalls, even some of his earliest memories involve watching his father train students, compete in tournaments and study martial arts films. While the lifestyle was always present, a younger Villardo initially resisted fully embracing it, searching instead for his own identity separate from his father's. 

In time, his search would take place against a backdrop of neighbourhood influences marked by anger, poor choices and pressure to chase various superficial ideas of success. It wasn’t until at 19-years-old, everything shifted while attending dual seminars at Scarborough’s Triumph Muay Thai gym.

“After the seminar, there was a Muay Thai demonstration happening, and I will never forget watching them punch, kick and knee with so much intensity,” he told The Catholic Register. “It spoke to me because I had a lot of rage and energy inside of me, and I was able to recognize that this could be a place where it could finally be directed into something disciplined.”

With his father’s encouragement, he began training under Kru Justin Oracion, who remains a mentor to this day. What started as an outlet for angst and aimlessness quickly became a source of structure and community. With the art directing his pain, he claims it opened a door to a deeper faith. 

“ I was caught between the two worlds with one part of me wanting to look tough, make money, hang out and party, living according to what the world told me success was supposed to be while the other part was hurting and yearning for something deeper,” he said. 

“It was Muay Thai that was God's gift to me. It was where He met me and allowed me not even to fight but to base myself and turn that discipline into devotion, and eventually a way of serving other people. My pain needed direction, and God knew that. Through Him, it gave my life a calling.” 

This foundation in martial arts and emerging faith set the stage for his formal education and ministry path. After earning a Bachelor of Arts (Specialized Honours) in Religious Studies from York University, Villardo pursued extensive theological and clinical training. He completed a Master of Religious Education at the University of St. Michael’s College, a Certificate in Death, Dying and Grief at Tyndale Seminary, Clinical Pastoral Education at Trinity College and Interfaith Leadership studies. Most recently, he was enrolled in a Master of Psychospiritual Studies with a Certificate in Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy at Knox College, University of Toronto.

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At 24 and inspired by his father’s time in hospital ministry, he became the youngest chaplain to serve a hospital program at the time, a moment when he discovered that accompaniment was his life’s true calling. It was upon his return to St. Michael’s for his first Master's that faculty learned of his martial arts background and unconventional journey, prompting them to suggest Covenant House Toronto for his chaplaincy placement. Three years later, that placement began, and by the time he was 28, he was hired full-time as pastoral and spiritual care advisor. 

At first, he chose to keep the two worlds separate, “spiritual care by day, Muay Thai by night,” as he described it. Through the guidance of his predecessor and spiritual mentor Maria Karajovanova, he saw the potential for integration. By the end of his placement, she required him to lead a spiritually focused Muay Thai program, an experience he's convinced was revelatory. 

“I had this moment where I knew I had something here,” he said, planting the seed for the approach he now brings to Covenant House. 

While it may seem like a stretch to combine one of combat sports' most traditionally violent disciplines with holistic spiritual care, Villardo says the dichotomy developed organically through his own lived experience and mentorship.

“ That tension is exactly where the deeper lesson lives. In light of my own values and belief in my faith, Muay Thai can teach that strength without discipline can be destructive, but also that discipline without compassion can be very cold. My goal is to develop the strength for people to face whatever's in front of them while remaining guided in their faith,” he said. 

He brings many unseen correlations from fighting and spirituality into his lessons. 

“ Like a fight, there's a time to advance, defend, breathe and to listen to your corner. For youth, life carries the same rhythm, and this can remind them when to move, to be still, to ask for support and also when to stand their ground,” he said. “In those victories, it teaches them what it means to be grateful, because every victory that I ever had, I reflect to try to honour those who helped me and to glorify God through that.”

It’s those lessons and in those ways that Villardo has given new hope to at-risk youth experiencing homelessness, mental health disorders and survivors of sex trafficking at Covenant House over the last eight years. Hewill attempt to do so in a new way on Aug. 8, during the Office of Catholic Youth’s newest Faith and Fitness Muay Thai event. Those attending will gather at Triumph Muay Thai to pray the Rosary before a lesson and talk by Villardo ahead of a Vigil Mass at St. Maria Goretti Parish. 

While the Covenant House chaplain hopes participants experience faith through the whole person across physical movement, mental challenge and spiritual harmony at the event, Villardo now reflects on a growing legacy that is becoming far too large to be encompassed by any ring or canvas. 

Even though his national and provincial medals have long been shelved, he attests that what matters most are the young people who walk through Covenant House’s doors every day. His greatest hope remains that they hear the message he once needed to hear himself: that they are more than the hardest thing that has ever happened to them. That their wounds can become wisdom, their anger discipline and their grief, however entrenched, can become something beautiful. 

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“Luctus me florere fecit,” he said. “Grief made me bloom.”

In the end, Villardo doesn’t want his legacy to be that of a champion fighter or even as a chaplain, but simply a corner man having the backs of kids, quietly reminding them that they are not alone against any opponent.