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Catholicism is having a moment, and now the church is getting even more good press.
On Saturday, beauty brand founder Scott-Vincent Borba, 52, will give up his former life of fame and fortune to begin life as an ordained Catholic priest in his hometown of Visalia, California.
“I have never been happier in my life,” Borba told ABC 7 of his massive life change. “Once I started to reorient myself, recalibrate myself with God’s help to the focus to Him, the joy started coming.”
Borba co-founded the makeup brand e.l.f. Cosmetics (“eyes, lips, face”) with his father and son in 2004. The brand became a huge success in the mid-2010s thanks to clever marketing campaigns and affordable prices. Per Forbes, it reached $100 million in sales in 2014, and Borba was living a lifestyle to match his newfound success.
“We ran around with the likes of Paris Hilton and partying with Kardashians and just doing up the Hollywood life,” the brand founder told ABC 7. “I was a poster boy for luxury living. I was not in any which way humble. I was very prideful,” he added.
“I was vapid. I had a perverse life,” Borba told CBS 47 during another interview. “I went to L.A., I got sucked into the Hollywood lifestyle — it was almost to a point where I was trying to sell my soul, right, for all of the riches of the world, which is not what we’re supposed to be … I was living for myself.”
Borba is currently living as a deacon and, because he’s becoming a priest so late in life, is in the minority. But what makes his story so remarkable is how he lived with such success and turned away after realizing the money never delivered true joy.
Instead of turning to sex, drugs, and alcohol or chasing more success, Borba gave away all his earthly possessions and tried something radically different.
“I asked our Lord to help me be the man that he created me to be. And upon that instance, I had this massive flood of love and mercy that came into my life,” Borba told ABC. “It was a very mystical experience.”
“I live in a little tiny room with … it’s sparse, nothing in it,” Borba said of his current seminary life. “I have a few bits of clothes and a few pairs of shoes. And my life has been culled down to the bare minimum.”
The e.l.f. brand founder said he always felt called to become a priest but ignored it until a few years ago, which is when he finally discovered that the treasures of the world would never fill the void in his soul.
This story couldn’t come at a more critical moment for the Catholic Church. While there has been a massive uptick in converts to Catholicism, including among young adults who have a particular interest in the traditional Latin Mass, there is also a huge shortage of priests. Parishes are merging and closing even as the number of interested congregants continues to grow.
According to the Church’s statistical yearbook, the number of priests worldwide fell to 406,996 in 2023, representing a multi-year decline that doesn’t appear to be changing. Older priests are retiring or dying, and not enough young men are coming to replace them, despite the massive number of Catholic converts.
Dan Monastra, a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said he has a theory about this.
“One reason is the overall lack of desire in our culture to commit oneself to something permanent, especially among younger generations. We see this not only with the priesthood but with marriage as well. Another reason is that the priesthood is antithetical to what modern culture offers: namely, comfort,” he told Fox Business during an interview on the topic last month.
That explains why the global Catholic population has surpassed 1.4 billion, but there is still a critical shortage of men willing to step up and join the priesthood. People in Borba’s position are even rarer. According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the average age for new priests is 33. Only 3% of current seminarians are over 50, according to Zach Flanagin, a professor of theology and religious studies at Saint Mary’s College of California.
“We are entering into a different time with new challenges. The world is constantly changing, and it is up to the Church to find ways to bear witness to Christ in the midst of these changes while still upholding the ancient faith,” Monastra said of the new reality.
With stories like Borba’s being reported, it could inspire more men who feel the call to change their lives to consider entering the priesthood, even if it’s a second act.
“I think that a story like his is a great opportunity to inspire people,” theology and religious studies professor Zach Flanagin told ABC 7 of Borba’s journey. “And certainly, his call, I hope it’s genuinely successful because if it is, then he will hopefully bring in people to know Christ.”
