Father Joseph Walijewski

A Machete, a Mission, and a Heart for the Poor

Joseph Walijewski was born in 1924 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to a devout Polish-American family. He discerned a priestly vocation early and was ordained for the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1948. After a decade of parish ministry in Wisconsin, he felt the call to the foreign missions.

In 1959, Father Walijewski arrived in Bolivia. On his very first assignment, the local bishop handed him a machete, and together they hacked through the jungle to find a place to build a church. That moment captured the spirit of his entire priesthood: go where no one else will go, and build something from nothing. He founded the parish of Holy Cross in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and served the indigenous and mestizo communities with tireless energy.

In the 1970s, he moved to Peru, where the poverty was even more extreme. He built a church, organized catechesis programs, and became a father to the fatherless in the truest sense. In 1991, he founded Casa Hogar Juan Pablo II (the John Paul II Home), an orphanage on five acres near Lurin, outside Lima. There, abandoned and abused children found shelter, education, and love.

Father Walijewski served in South America for over forty years, returning to Wisconsin only rarely. He died of pneumonia in Peru in 2006 at age 82, still living among the people he had given his life to serve. On May 1, 2013, Bishop William Callahan of La Crosse formally opened his cause for canonization.

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