In his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That All May Be One), Pope St. John Paul II said, “The Church must breathe with her two lungs,” referring to its Western and Eastern rites.
Father Weldit Tesfazghi, who arrived at Hilliard St. Brendan the Navigator Church as an associate pastor on Jan. 30, says his role in his new assignment is to serve as a connection between those two separate but connected branches of the Church.
“Pope John Paul’s description is a metaphor for the unity of the Church,” he said. “He speaks of the mutual interdependence and healthy tension that should exist between the East and West so that the Church as a whole can fully benefit and her mission can become more effective.
“As a priest who can celebrate Mass in both the Latin rite of the Western Church and the Ge’ez rite of the Eastern Church, I can serve as a symbol of the unity John Paul describes.”
Father Tesfazghi, or Father Weldit as he is familiarly known, is a native of Eritrea in eastern Africa and has been a priest of the Archeparchy of Asmara, Eritrea, since his ordination there in 2009.
At St. Brendan Church, he is performing the usual sacramental duties of a parochial vicar such as celebrating Mass, administering the sacraments, talking to students at the parish school and visiting the sick.
He also is serving as chaplain to the central Ohio Ge’ez Rite Catholic community, which he said consists of about 350 people and meets daily for evening prayer and Sunday for the Divine Liturgy in Ge’ez (pronounced ghee-EZZ) at Columbus St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church.
Ge’ez is an ancient Ethiopian and Eritrean language now used almost exclusively for liturgical purposes.
Father Tesfazghi, 40, has two older brothers and an older sister. Their mother is deceased, and their father lives in their hometown of Zagr, an Eritrean community of about 3,000 families, most of whom are members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. He said he is the only priest to come from the community.
Eritrea was an Italian colony from 1880 until Italy was defeated by the United States and its allies in World War II. It borders Ethiopia and was part of that nation for three decades, most of which were spent fighting for its independence, which it regained in a United Nations-supervised vote in 1993.
About 5 percent of Eritrea’s 3.6 million people are Catholics, and they are served by about 500 priests. The nation’s government officially recognizes four religions, including Catholicism. Most Eritreans are either Sunni Muslims or members of the Tewahedo Orthodox Church, with numbers relatively similar for both. About 2 percent are Lutherans, the only official Protestant denomination.
The nation also has many communities of women religious, most notably the Daughters of St. Anne, Daughters of Charity and Ursuline Sisters, who ran hospitals, clinics and children’s homes in Eritrea until the government seized those institutions in 2019.
The Human Rights Watch organization describes Eritrea as a dictatorship under the one-man rule of President Isaias Afwerki and said his government “has taken no steps to end widespread forced labor and conscription policies,” which include forcing its troops to fight in Ethiopia’s Tigray region against residents of the area who are seeking independence.
“The country has undergone notoriously gruesome human rights violations,” said The Pilot, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston. “Human rights groups have accused the government of committing crimes such as enslavement, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, torture, persecution, rape and murder.”
Father Tesfazghi’s first three assignments were at parishes in his homeland, but he has been in effect a priest in exile for seven years, being assigned elsewhere both to help his fellow Eritreans who were forced to become refugees and to ensure his own protection.
Archbishop Menghesteab Tesfamariam assigned him in 2016 to work in Egypt with Eritrean refugees in conjunction with the Comboni missionary order. In 2019, he began attending the English and Cultural Studies program at Sacred Heart Seminary in Franklin, Wisconsin.
He was able to do so through the assistance of seminary board member Fessahaye Mebrahtu, the director of Black Catholic and ethnic ministries for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, an Eritrean who has helped priests from that nation come to the United States.
During his time in Wisconsin, Father Tesfazghi occasionally visited the Holy Savior Eritrean Catholic community at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Charlotte, North Carolina for feast days and special occasions.
He later lived with the Franciscan Brothers of Peace at the Queen of Peace Friary in St. Paul, Minnesota until coming to the Diocese of Columbus in response to a request by Bishop Earl Fernandes to Archbishop Tesfamariam for a priest to serve Eritrean Catholics in central Ohio.
“One of the things I had to get used to in America is that the people are so much more involved in the liturgy, serving as lectors and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist,” Father Tesfazghi said.
“That was a little difficult to accept at first, but one of the priests in Wisconsin reminded me that no matter who you may receive the Eucharist from, it’s the priest’s role to consecrate. Having lay people distribute the Eucharist is a significant way of showing their importance to the Church’s mission.
“While I was concelebrating my first school Mass at St. Brendan, I saw children as lectors for the first time and thought how wonderful it was to involve them in that way.
“One thing that’s more of a challenge to a priest in America than in Africa is to explain the Church’s stand on moral issues,” he said. “So many people don’t believe in the Church that it’s hard to talk to them about why the Church takes the position it does on certain matters.
“I can’t go back to Eritrea because of the situation there. The bishop of one of the nation’s four eparchies (dioceses) was imprisoned for almost three months because he spoke against the government’s seizure of Church institutions.
“I, too, have preached many times against the policy of the government. I’d like nothing more than to return there, and it’s my hope that the government will change or will be more accommodating to the Catholic Church,” Father Tesfazghi said.
“In my short time at Hilliard, Father Bob Penhallurick, the pastor, and Father Frank Brown, the parochial vicar, have been a great source of happiness to me, providing a connection to God and His people.
“And the people of Hilliard have been so wonderful I can’t find words to express their kindness. They are such peaceful, friendly people with a deep spirituality, especially the parish staff. They have touched my heart.”
