 Marino was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, the sixth of a total of eight children to baker and Puerto Rican Jesús María Marino and Lottie Irene Bradford Marino, a maid.From 1952 to 1956 he attended Epiphany Apostolic College in Newburgh, New York and went on to St. Joseph's Seminary in 1962 where he was ordained as a priest in the same year.He then went on to continue his education at Loyola University and Fordham University in The Bronx, New York City, graduating in 1967.