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Today’s missionary hero is Fr. Joseph Walijewski (pronounced Wally-ES-kee), a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Joseph was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on March 15, 1924, one of 10 children. After he graduated from Catholic school, Joseph moved to the state of Wisconsin to enter the seminary. In April of 1950, he was ordained as a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
In the diocese, he served parishes in three communities. Then, in 1955, he heard a speech about the need for missionaries in Bolivia, South America. He asked his bishop if he could go to Bolivia, but the bishop told him to pray about it and get back to him in a year. Then, in 1956, the bishop granted his request to go to Bolivia.
Fr. Joseph went to the city of Santa Cruz, where he met with Bishop Brown. The bishop gave him a machete, and the two of them began cutting their way through the jungle outside the city. Finally, the bishop stopped and said, “Build a church here. The people will come and will build their houses around the church.” So, that is exactly what Fr. Joseph did. He built Holy Cross parish and remained there for a decade before being called back to serve again in the Diocese of La Crosse.
In 1970, though, an earthquake devastated the country of Peru, killing more than 74,000 people. Fr. Joseph, whom the people of South America called Padre José, was sent to Peru to help. On the outskirts of the capital city of Lima, he founded the parish of Christ the Savior in Villa El Salvador. During the next several years, the population of the parish exploded, growing from 80,000 to 900,000. Padre José founded eight chapels in the area.
During the time he was in Peru, terrorists targeted priests in Lima because of their work supporting the poor. The terrorists felt that if the poor became powerful, they would rise up against the rich and powerful. Fr. José was able to escape many assassination attempts on his life, including one time when the dynamite packed into a tractor he was using for work around his church failed to detonate.
In 1985, Pope John Paul II visited Lima, Peru and met with Padre José. Before he left the country, the pope gave Padre José a gift of $50,000. With this money, Padre José founded an orphanage that he named Casa Hogar Juan Pablo II in 1986.
Even after serving fifty years in the ordained priesthood, Padre José kept on working hard. In fact, the year 2000, 50 years after his ordination, he was found busy going into the rain forest to celebrate Masses every Sunday with the Ashiko Indians, and in 2005, he founded St. Joseph’s Retirement Hone in Chontabamba, Peru.
Every year, Padre José returned to the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin to speak about his work in South America. One person who was privileged to hear many of the priest’s stories was a seminarian named James Altman. James, who eventually became a priest, said that Fr. José could speak for hours about the people he served, what it was like to be a missionary, and how he had to be very careful not to be killed by terrorists and government agents because of his service to the poor. As James Altman said, “He was a humble man with great faith.”
Padre José died just he wished – while working with the poor. After becoming sick, he was taken to a hospital in Lima, Peru. He died from pneumonia and acute leukemia on April 11, 2006 at the age of 82.
Less than a year after he had been installed as the Bishop of La Crosse, William Callahan went to Lima, Peru to see where it was that Fr. Walijewski had lived and worked. He was astonished at what he called, “one of the most incredible garbage dumps the world has ever known. Father Joe was sent to the people living in that squalor, and that’s where his parish was.” The bishop was incredibly touched by observing the reverence children displayed around Fr. Joseph’s tomb.
Today, Fr. Joe is known as Servant of God Joseph Walijewski. The Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in addition to having Fr. Joe on the path to sainthood, also has Blessed Solanus Casey on the same path.
A beautiful life.