Marvin-Paul Fernandez offered the first clue that a vocation to religious life could be in his future back when he was a little boy growing up in Laoag City in the Philippines’ Ilocos Norte province.

WASHINGTON – The gray robes worn by the Conventual Franciscan friars may not be fashionable in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, but the religious men appear to be fitting in just fine in the heart of "hipster" country.