Vietnamese-Americans light candles at St. Helena, a Catholic church in Philadelphia, on April 4. Like many other once-struggling churches, St. Helena has been revitalized by immigrant parishioners. About 200 Vietnamese families worship at this church, along with others from Latin America, the Philippines and Africa.

Source: NPR

Nearly a century ago, immigrants from Germany and Ireland founded St. Helena Church in a working-class neighborhood in north Philadelphia.

Immigrants, and their children, still fill the pews at St. Helena’s — but the vast majority of them are now from Vietnam, Latin America, the Philippines and Africa. Weekly masses are conducted in Spanish and Vietnamese as well as English. The senior priest, the Rev. Joseph Trinh, is himself a Vietnamese refugee. One of his associate priests is from Haiti, and another is from Ecuador.

“I tell people here that we didn’t have the opportunity to build this beautiful church, but now it is our turn to upkeep it and pass it on to the next generation,” Trinh says. “We were welcomed here, and now we have to welcome other groups that come in.”

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