A lot of priests know their way around a kitchen, but the Washington Post this week profiled one who is turning it into his own little apostolate.

Take a look:

Mass had been over only a few minutes and the Rev. Leo Patalinghug had already traded his green and gold robe for an apron, his priest’s collar poking out over the top. He was chopping onions with the speed and flair of a celebrity chef –which he is.

Sort of.

The unusual cooking demonstration occurred on a recent afternoon at a Catholic bookstore in downtown Washington. About two dozen people took their lunch hour to see the compact, smiley 39-year-old show how to make penne alla vodka, with dramatic flames of burning liquor and a dose of spiritual encouragement delivered in a snappy, chatty manner.

“This is my favorite sound!” Patalinghug proclaimed as he popped raw onions into a pan of hot oil. “That, or ‘Go in peace and serve the Lord.'”

Corny, telegenic, not aggressively religious — that’s Patalinghug’s style, more Emeril than Benedict. The Baltimore native has two self-published cookbooks and a Web site that has 10,000 visitors a month. He travels frequently to speak to crowds who want to see the priest who cooks, break dances and stick fights. (He has won a world championship in arnis, a martial art.)

PBS is hoping to put him on the air. The Food Network is taping a test show with him in June.

It has become commonplace for Protestant ministers — evangelicals in particular — to embrace pop culture and the mass media. And then there’s the Orthodox rabbi with the TV show and the jet-setting Muslim preacher who has wowed crowds worldwide with his theology. But few Catholic priests are in the public eye in that way, and Patalinghug says it’s time to try something new to engage people and their faith. It is part of a movement among traditional Catholics who are pushing what Pope John Paul II called “the new evangelization,” an effort to use mass communication to draw people to the Church.

Patalinghug is using his role as a budding celebrity chef to preach the importance of the dinner table in family life. The family that cooks and eats together stays together, he says.

“Grace Before Meals” is the name of what Patalinghug calls his “movement.” It’s also the title of his first book (which has sold 6,000 copies), Web site, e-mail blasts and “webisodes” of him cooking. What he describes as his “calling” involves him in marketing meetings, fundraising and fretting that the camera is adding five pounds. But it’s all a plunge into pop culture that he feels is necessary for Catholicism.

Read the rest. You can also visit his website and watch some of his cooking videos.

PHOTO: by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post