Sacred Heart Catholic: a church in transition

The Rev. Shay W. Auerbach was initially assigned to Sacred Heart Catholic Church for a year, but he asked to stay longer when he saw great opportunities to minister to a multicultural community, immigrants and the marginalized.

After 15 months, the Jesuit priest, a native of Hawaii, was formally installed Thursday night as pastor of Sacred Heart, a church on Perry Street in South Richmond with about 1,200 families.

White, black and Hispanic parishioners packed the red-brick, 1½-story building for the installation Mass.

"Good evening, buenas noches, aloha," the Most Rev. Francis X. DiLorenzo said to the standing-room-only crowd.

Hymns, Scripture readings and other rituals in the hour-long Mass alternated between English and Spanish.

His job and that of priests is to help people from all cultures find Jesus, DiLorenzo said in his sermon.

"Everybody sees Jesus and Mary a little different according to their culture," he said. "But it's always Jesus; it's always Mary. It's always the Holy Father; it's always the Holy Spirit."

Sacred Heart has changed throughout its 107-year history in the historic Manchester neighborhood, once an independent city.

Auerbach said, "The parish at one time was all white and then there was a nearby African-American parish that closed and some of the people came here . . . and then the Spanish-speaking community in the early '90s found a home here."

The late Rev. Ricardo Seidel began celebrating Mass in Spanish at Sacred Heart, making it the first church in the Richmond area to do that. Today about 90 percent of the members are Hispanic, which means about 1,000 parishioners on the weekends during three Spanish Masses celebrated by Auerbach, who also speaks Chinese, German and a Hawaiian language.

Sacred Heart boasts growth in a time of shrinking membership in inner-city churches, Auerbach said.

The church is a microcosm of a national trend in the Catholic Church with a growing presence of Hispanics. About 29 percent of U.S. Catholics are Hispanic. In the Richmond Diocese, an estimated 70,000 of about 228,000 parishioners are Hispanic.

In the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, 25 churches out of 152 offer Mass in Spanish. Ten other churches have significant Hispanic membership, said Erik M. Giblin, director of the Office for the Hispanic Apostolate.

"Father Shay Auerbach's installation . . . is a wonderful and powerful sign of the contributions, hopes and aspirations of Latinos through the diocese," he said.

Auerbach, 42, said he joined the Jesuits 20 years ago because he admired their quest for intellectuality and their tradition of cultural immersion. He was ordained as a priest 9½ years ago. Last July, he came as an administrator to Sacred Heart, where the Jesuits have been present for 20 years at the invitation of the Richmond Diocese. DiLorenzo is the ultimate authority in the parish.

Irene Rojas, a member of the parish committee, praised Auerbach's service.

"He's fabulous, sociable, full of love," Rojas, who lives in Henrico, said in Spanish.

Vivian Johnston, who has learned Spanish through singing with the bilingual choir that performed during Mass, has seen many changes in the church since she became a member in 1969.

"I would like to see more Spanish people [in the English Mass] along with the English people," she said. "That's where we need to come together."

After the Mass, the fiesta continued with Mexican indigenous dancers on the street, and parishioners savored tamales, atole, ham and spaghetti while a traditional Bolivian music group featured Andean flute and ukelele sounds.

As a Jesuit, Auerbach said he is immersing in his parish's cultural riches.

"It's getting to know the people, their cultures, how they experience God, but using their culture as a way of evangelizing them."
Contact Juan Antonio Lizama at (804) 649-6513 or .