Bishop-elect Williams: ‘One of the great gifts of my priesthood is the Latino people’

When Bishop-elect Joseph Williams, as a high school sophomore, debated immigration, he and a classmate argued that people crossing the border without papers break the law and should be prosecuted. As a priest in 2012, he wrote a commentary piece in The Catholic Spirit saying it was hard for him to believe he once held that opinion.

“I thank God for the privilege of serving such humble and loveable people,” he wrote. “I thank God that, through them, he has changed my attitude toward so many people of good will who are here without authorization.”

He added that many Latinos are in the U.S. legally, and he prayed for the day when those not here legally would enjoy the stability of permanent residency. “I think they are a tremendous, revitalizing force, not only for the Church but also for society and the economy,” he wrote.

The spark for Bishop-elect Williams’ focus on Latino ministry was struck when he began his major theology studies in the fall semester of 1998 at The St. Paul Seminary, he recently told The Catholic Spirit. He saw a rose blooming outside the morning of Dec. 12 that year, on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, prompting thoughts of the miracle of the roses in Mexico in 1531, when St. Juan Diego saw flowers blooming out of season as Our Lady appeared to him.

“I think that was the first sense that maybe our Lord wants something from me,” Bishop-elect Williams said. “Maybe I implicitly understood that the Latino people were Our Lady’s flowers today in our midst.”

The following spring, with that rose in mind, he chose Latino ministry for his final project in a class, Pastoral Ministry in American Culture. The project included interviewing several priests. “Seeing how much they loved the Latino people, how much they were loved by the Latino people, really confirmed in my heart this desire to serve them,” Bishop-elect Williams said. “And meeting them firsthand — their tenderness, their deep love of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary — was exactly what I was looking for in my own priesthood.”

While he was in seminary, he’d wake up early every Dec. 12 and go to Our Lady of Guadalupe church in St. Paul in time for singing “morning songs” with parishioners “because I knew that this is where I belonged and this is where God wanted me,” Bishop-elect Williams said.

Even the day he received the call from the papal nuncio that Pope Francis appointed him as an auxiliary bishop, Bishop-elect Williams was standing in front of a large image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He said he felt her say, “Be not afraid; try not to get worried.”

Two years after ordination to the priesthood, his Spanish-speaking skills helped Bishop-elect Williams in his assignment at Divine Mercy in Faribault, which had a growing Latino population. While serving there, “a love was really born there with Latinos,” he said.

The estimated 90% Latino population at Holy Rosary, the south Minneapolis parish where Bishop-elect Williams has served as parochial administrator since 2020, includes about 60% of Mexican heritage; 20% Ecuadoran; 10% from Chile, Venezuela or Costa Rica; and a few families from Puerto Rico, said 22-year parishioner Patricia Sandoval, a member of the parish’s finance council. She estimates that, of the similar majority Latino population at nearby St. Stephen, where Bishop-elect Williams has ministered since 2008, most parishioners are from Ecuador and, after that, Mexico.

Sandoval said Bishop-elect Williams is successful in Latino ministry for a number of reasons, including being a good listener, his prayerful approach, asking for people’s input on issues and in his general demeanor, including kindness, humility “and always smiling.” And she believes the Holy Spirit inspires his ministry.

Holy Rosary parishioner Juan Mendoza said Bishop-elect Williams encourages people to become more involved in their parish, and he leads by example.

Both parishes have benefitted from his leadership skills in times of difficult transitions. In June 2020, Dominican friars left Holy Rosary after founding and then serving the parish for 142 years. Bishop-elect Williams managed the transition from the Dominicans and guided a year of discernment, said Ginger Graham, business administrator at Holy Rosary and St. Stephen. The parish also had serious financial challenges that required creativity to keep the doors open, she said.

As he began his ministry at St. Stephen in spring 2008, Bishop-elect Williams also faced a difficult situation. A large group of English-speaking parishioners had left the parish shortly before he arrived, breaking unity with the Catholic Church to form their own community.

Bishop-elect Williams reached out in person and through other communications, said Deacon Luis Rubi, who served at St. Stephen from September 2008 to 2016. But he faced liturgical and other challenges, “a clash of ecclesiology, a complete clash in what it means to be Catholic,” Deacon Rubi said.

“There’s no more gentle and compassionate human being that I’ve ever met,” Deacon Rubi said of Bishop-elect Williams. “It certainly took a special leader to be at that parish at that time.”

Neighborhood evangelization revitalized St. Stephen, with Bishop-elect Williams and parishioners knocking on doors, introducing themselves and inviting people to liturgy, asking people if they needed someone to pray for them and asking Catholics they encountered if they missed any sacraments.

In 2013, lay missionaries from St. Stephen approached Norberta Lopez, Freddy Torres and their three children in a Minneapolis park as part of that evangelization. The family joined the parish and received sacraments.

More than anything, the family, as Mexican immigrants, identified with Bishop-elect Williams because “he speaks our language,” Torres said. “He has welcomed us as a family, as the immigrants we are.” Sometimes, immigrants forget about God because they are so busy working, he said. But thanks to his pastor’s outreach and ministry, Torres said, his whole family has been saved. As a great evangelizer, the bishop-elect has “rescued” many Latino families, he said.

In 2018, Archbishop Bernard Hebda appointed Bishop-elect Williams the archdiocese’s vicar for Latino Ministry, where he oversees Latino ministry planning with the ministry’s director. He also participates quarterly with priests and coordinators at parishes with Latino ministry programs and represents Archbishop Bernard Hebda in related projects and events. More than 20 parishes in the archdiocese offer sacraments, catechesis and spiritual support to thousands of Spanish-speaking parishioners.

As vicar, Bishop-elect Williams “accompanied the other priests in the ups and downs of being a pastor who serves the Latino community,” said Estela Villagrán Manancero, archdiocesan director of Latino Ministry. “They know they can reach out to him,” she said, including for guidance on issues that might arise at a parish.

Villagrán Manancero also praised “the great job” Bishop-elect Williams has done evangelizing and drawing people to St. Stephen, and offering sacraments to Latino families. “He invites (priests) to do as he did at St. Stephen, to grow the community,” she said. He has patience, strong focus on keeping Latino youth in the Church, developing and trusting ministry leaders and “accompanying people who are suffering.”

“I think it’s a plus that we will have someone (as auxiliary bishop) that has served the (Latino) community,” Villagrán Manancero said. “He knows what it takes. He can make important decisions for the community and it’s an opportunity for him to actually lift up the community” on justice issues, she said, including helping legislators understand the reality of the community, such as those who are undocumented.

During a press conference Dec. 10, the day he was announced as the next auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese, Bishop-elect Williams said he could not thank God more for when he became vicar. “One of the great gifts of my priesthood is the Latino people,” he said.

Bishop-elect Williams will carry his love for the Latino people close to him in his ministry as bishop, including symbolically. In addition to a shamrock representing the Holy Trinity on his crozier, he will have a rose representing the Latino people, whom he sees like flowers blooming in Minnesota’s cold winters, still flourishing in the faith, he said.

“It’s beautiful to see the shamrock almost arched over the single rose in a sign of blessing, of protection,” he told The Catholic Spirit in a Jan. 7 interview. “And, God willing, with my staff, I can continue that work of the Trinity amongst the Latino people.”

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• Word on the streets