A Month Full of Learning and Travel

by The Reverend Dr. Roman D. Roldan on July 29, 2026

TLDR: This is the last installment of the Rector’s Sabbatical Reports. Please read on and enjoy.

My last month of sabbatical was dedicated to continuing education for which I traveled to the city of Cartagena. Many of you know my love and respect for N. T. Wright, who is an Anglican theologian and bishop from England.

Over the last twenty years I have read many of Wright’s books and I have attended several of his conferences in New Orleans and Houston. Last November I took one of his courses online from my brother’s pantry in New Jersey and I really liked the format. This year I decided on a retrospective of his greatest books, a course he named, “What I’ve learned: a theologian looks back.”

The course is dense, but brilliant. He retells his greatest biblical discoveries as he researched and wrote his classic works over the span of forty years. He has an entire chapter on creation theology as a reflection on the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Then he talks about the central role of the Temple in the development of the creation narrative of Genesis. Then for twenty three lessons or chapters, from Temple to the Ministry of the Church, Wright debunks many of the teachings we have learned in the Christianity of the west, and replaces outdated and outmoded theologies with brilliant Biblical exegesis. I don’t intend to bore you with too much detail, but I have prepared 10 lessons based on his content, which I will teach during Sunday school when I return.

Must see sights in Cartagena include The Walled City, Baru Island (home of the famed Playa Blanca), Getsemaní, and parts of the towns of Boca Grande and Marbella. Of all of these, I truly loved Getsemani because of its resemblance to the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Many who have traveled in Cartagena have noticed its uncanny resemblance to New Orleans: Colonial architecture and churches, plazas, Spanish street names, slave markets, balconies, vibrant paint colors, etc. But for centuries the people who worked in the French Quarter of NOLA or in Cartagena’s walled city, lived in much humbler and cheaper towns, like Nine Ward and Getsemani.

In the case of Getsemani, located just outside of the walled city, the transformation over the last 30 years has been remarkable. You now find the best restaurants, clubs, and street food in this gorgeous part of the city. Colombia has strict rules that prohibit changing the facades of historic buildings and many have done a great job at maintaining the charm of the historic interiors as well. The result is lush gardens, historic colonial architecture, stone-paved streets, and beautifully painted buildings everywhere.

If you have not traveled in Cartagena, you owe yourself a trip to the walled city and Getsemani. When there, try the street food, declared the safest in Latin America because of the use of purified and spring water. And if you like tropical fruits like mangoes and papayas, you will not be disappointed. You will also love the wide assortment of fresh sea food and local sweet-water fish you can pair with fried green and sweet plantains and coconut rice.

I have also enjoyed watching World Cup games in the round of 16 and the quarter finals and thoroughly enjoyed the final between Spain and Argentina. After the elimination of England, which was one of my favorites, I found myself rooting for Spain, so I was very pleased with the result.

I will be back among you the week of August 3rd and will preach all English services on the 9th. I find myself refreshed and excited to return to you. Thank you for all your support.

Blessings to all,

Fr. Roldan+

Your wandering Rector

About the Author

The Reverend Dr. Roman D. Roldan

The Rev. Dr. Roman D. Roldan is originally from Colombia, South America, where he lived until he migrated to the United States for College in Southwest Miami in the late 1980s. He attended the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium for graduate school in theology, followed by a master’s degree in social work at Rutgers University in New Jersey in the early 1990s. From 1995 to 2005, he worked as a bilingual psychotherapist, administrator, and Chief Deputy Officer for a national behavioral healthcare company in Florida. He became an Episcopalian in the year 2000 at Grace Episcopal Church, Ocala, Florida. In 2005, he attended Trinity School for Ministry, graduating in 2007 with his master’s degree in divinity and in 2016 with his doctorate in divinity with a concentration in preaching.

Fr. Roldan has been an Associate Dean at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Davenport, Iowa, the Rector of Grace Church of West Feliciana Parish in Saint Francisville, Louisiana, for eleven years, and the Rector of Saint Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, for nearly five years. From 2017 to 2020, Fr. Roldan served as a seminary professor at Trinity School for Ministry’s Spanish online program. He also served from 2015-2019 as the Episcopal Chaplain at Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as “Angola Prison.” He was the Dean of the Baton Rouge Deanery in the Dioceses of Louisiana from 2016-2020. From 2010 to 2020, Fr. Roldan served as a short-term missionary in the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras and built the Episcopal Church in El Carmen, San Nicolas. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the Seminary of the Southwest since 2021. He has been a chaplain to 3 Cursillo and two Happening teams since his ordination. He is passionate about the supervision of curates and raising vocations to the diaconate and the priesthood.

Fr. Roldan has been married to Chris Anna Roldan for 31 years and has four children ages 30, 27, 22, and 20. He is an avid reader, traveler, and amateur writer. He is the author of A Blind Man and his Monkey and is currently working on his second novel, The Ghost and his Baby.

Email: frroman@saintdunstans.org

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