Last month, we announced that Bishop Felipe Estévez has joined CIIC’s Advisory Board. Bishop Felipe Estévez currently serves as the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida and has focused his ministry work on family life, youth, campus, prison and respect life ministries, as well as all church movements and new communities. We thought we’d share a conversation between Bishop Estévez and CIIC’s Advisory Board Member, Pat Dinneen, about the Bishop’s journey to the U.S. and the priesthood, and what he hopes to bring to the CIIC community.
Pat Dinneen: Bishop Estévez, it is a great joy and privilege to welcome you to CIIC’s Advisory Board. I truly believe it is not a coincidence, but a “God-incidence” that we are working together again after overlapping on the board of Catholic Relief Services. Would you please tell us about your formative years growing up in Cuba and coming to the US?
Bishop Felipe Estévez: I was born in Havana, Cuba in 1946 and grew up as an active member in my Catholic parish. I was an altar server and had a very close relationship with my pastor. I was 13 years old on January 1, 1959 when the governance of Castro’s regime and the Cuban revolution began. There was rejoicing over the end of the Batista dictatorship and a lot of hope that this new leadership would create a democratic revolution, but when Castro declared a Marxist, Leninist revolution in 1961, there was a turn in our society. In the United States, Catholic Charities USA was working with the State Department on Operación Pedro Pan, a secret operation for 15,000 Cuban children to receive visas to relocate to the United States. My parents made the decision to send me to the US through this program, and I arrived in Miami as part of an international refugee program through Catholic Relief Services/ Catholic Charities of Miami. From there, children were sent to different Catholic Charities across the country and I was one of 27 children sent to Fort Wayne, Indiana. In August 1961, two months after my arrival to the US, I was enrolled in a Catholic high school in Fort Wayne.
PD: How were you welcomed in Indiana? Were there dangers in returning to Cuba?
BFE: My experience at the Catholic high school was very positive. The school was led by both laity and religious sisters with great hospitality. Part of Operación Pedro Pan was that the parents of the children also received a visa to come to the United States. After one year, my parents got their visas and joined me in Indiana. My story is one of the best –some other children suffered discrimination in coming to the US. My family believed that we would return to Cuba shortly. We thought a communist regime in Cuba, 90 miles away from Miami, would be impossible to survive but here we are 62 years later!
PD: What an incredible story. You became ordained in 1970, and I want to congratulate you on recently reaching your Jubilee Celebration, 50 years in the priesthood! Who or what inspired your decision to enter the priesthood?
BFE: The Spirit has led this life. In Cuba, I was very involved in a Catholic youth group, and the spiritual director of my parish proposed priesthood to me at 14 years old. I was shocked - I had never considered becoming a priest. I didn’t share this with anyone, but it planted a seed in my heart. When I was a junior in high school, I was figuring out my college plans when that seed emerged. I wanted to return to Cuba to the Diocese of Matanzas, and because the seminarians of Matanzas were located in Montreal, I was sent to Montreal University and received a license in theology. When I was ordained in 1970, the Cuban government wouldn’t let me back into the country. I was told I had a greater chance of getting into Cuba coming from Latin America, so I went to Honduras for the first four years of my priesthood. As a young priest in Honduras, I was in seminary formation in two seminaries (St. Joseph and Our Lady of Suyapa) as a professor and also did weekend ministries. Those years were formative for getting to see an active church. After four years, I still couldn’t return to Cuba, so my discernment led me to the Archdiocese of Miami.
PD: You and I met while working together on the board of Catholic Relief Services (CRS). What drew you to the mission of CRS?
BFE: I learned about Catholic Relief Services later in life as a priest, and to me, it is one of the best-kept secrets of the Catholic Church in the US. When I became a Bishop, I was invited to join the board and got to know their work. CRS is a great model for the implementation of Catholic Social Teachings (CST) at its best expression on a global scale. Through CRS, I went on four trips: Bosnia, the Philippines, El Salvador and the Holy Land. Each visit was transformative and perfectly demonstrated the methodology of CRS’ mission of service work in action.
PD: Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has really embraced CST and impact investing, and are now very involved in the CIIC community. Please tell us about your discernment process in joining CIIC and your dreams for the Church and impact investing.
BFE: I learned about CIIC from you during my time at Catholic Relief Services. CRS would host an Impact Investing Conference at the Vatican in Rome every other year, and you would share how wonderful those were. I came to CIIC as a beginner: my training is not in finance, and the intersection of the social doctrine of the church with investing is very new to me. I agreed to join the board of CIIC because, in humility, the Lord has put me in a position of influence. I am well connected in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and to a wealthy community of benefactors in Florida. My hope is to share impact investing with those communities and to make a difference by opening doors for CIIC. Historically, dioceses have leaned on the USCCB Investment Guidelines to plan their investments, but have not been active agents in guiding those decisions. In my own diocese, there are rich possibilities in transforming our finances to align with Catholic Social Teachings and I am recognizing my own influence in catalyzing that transformation.
PD: Bishop, you have a deep spiritual commitment to Catholic Social Teachings and I am thrilled to work with you at CIIC to share the power, beauty and glory of CST with all.
BFE: Thank you, Pat. I am so excited to bring our shared Catholic identity and the power of CST to our work in this community, and look forward to bringing light, compassion and solidarity.
