We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

Feast date: Jul 27

St. Panteleon, whose feast we celebrate on July 27, is the patron saint of bachelors and physicians.

As lifelong layperson, he was the physician for emperor Maximinianus. At one point in his life he had abandoned his faith, but he eventually returned to the Church, and gave his fortune to the poor, providing them medical treatment without charge. Some of his cures were accomplished by prayer.

Other physicians eventually denounced him to the anti-Christian authorities. At his trial, he offered a contest between himself and the pagan priests. He challenged the pagan priests to heal a paralyzed man with their prayers, but they were unable. St. Panteleon cured the man by simply mentioning the name of Jesus. As a result, many of those who witnessed the miracle converted to Christianity.

However, the authorities remained resolute in trying to get him to denounce his faith with bribes, threats and torture, but they did not succeed. He was then nailed to a tree and beheaded in c.305.

Former Detroit archbishop reads letter from Pope Leo XIV congratulating him on his years in ministry, reflects on many blessings

CNA Newsroom, Jul 26, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has urged the U.S. chapter of the international Pax Christi movement to move in "the peripheries" of society to spread peace and forgiveness there.

The pope issued the message to the national Pax Christi USA assembly taking place in Detroit. The group says the July 25-27 gathering is an opportunity for participants to renew their "commitment to peacemaking and care for the Earth and all its inhabitants."

Writing to the gathering, Pope Leo said: "In the midst of the many challenges facing our world at this time, including widespread armed conflict, division among peoples, and the challenges of forced migration, efforts to promote nonviolence are all the more necessary."

Leo noted that, following the "violence of the Crucifixion," the risen Christ greeted his apostles with peace, one that was "unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering."

Christ continues to charge his followers with spreading his peace, Leo wrote.

"In parishes, neighbourhoods, and especially on the peripheries, it is all the more important for a Church capable of reconciliation to be present and visible," he said.

The pontiff prayed that the gathering would inspire the event's participants to "work to make their local communities" into "houses of peace" that spread justice and forgiveness.

Pax Christi was founded in 1945 near the end of World War II and was recognized by Pope Pius XII in 1952. Its U.S. arm was founded in 1972.

CNA Newsroom, Jul 26, 2025 / 11:15 am (CNA).

Antonia Raco, a 67-year-old Italian woman long affected by an incurable neurodegenerative illness, was officially introduced to the press on July 25 in Lourdes, where her healing was recognized as the 72nd miracle attributed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary since the apparitions of 1858.  

Diagnosed in 2006 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — a progressive and fatal condition — Raco experienced a recovery that defied medical explanation.  

First announced by the Sanctuary of Lourdes on April 16 this year, the recognition marked the culmination of 16 years of medical, canonical, and pastoral inquiry. Raco, a mother and active parishioner from Basilicata in southern Italy, had been living with the disease for several years when she traveled to Lourdes in 2009.  

“I had wanted to go to Lourdes since I was a child,” she recalled. That wish came true that summer, when she and her husband Antonio travelled to the shrine with the Italian pilgrimage association Unitalsi.  

The experience, however, was not exactly as she had once imagined: She arrived in a wheelchair, already struggling to breathe and swallow.  

On the second day, sanctuary volunteers brought her to the baths. “We prayed together. That’s when I heard a beautiful young female voice say three times: ‘Don’t be afraid!’” she recounted during the press conference in Lourdes, held in the presence of religious and medical authorities.  

Raco wore the white veil and uniform of the Hospitallers of Lourdes — the volunteer caregivers she now joins each year, assisting the sick with the same compassion once shown to her.  

“At that moment, I burst into tears and prayed for the intentions I had brought with me.” 

She described a sudden, sharp pain in her legs during immersion, as though “they were taken away from me.” She did not disclose what had happened to anyone during her stay and returned home in a wheelchair.  

It was there, in her living room with her husband Antonio, that she again heard the same voice urging her, “Tell him! Call him!” Obeying the voice, she called out to her husband, who had just stepped into the kitchen. “Something has happened,” she told him.  

In that moment, she stood unaided for the first time in years. Overcome with emotion, the couple embraced, crying together as they realized she was cured. 

Though overjoyed, Raco was initially unsure of how to speak about her experience. She eventually confided in a parish priest in her diocese of Tursi-Lagonegro in Basilicata, who urged her to undergo medical evaluation.  

Soon after, the local archbishop who had accompanied the pilgrimage that year, Francesco Nolè, visited her and, after hearing her story, told her: “Antonietta, the Lord has entered your home and given you a gift – but it is not for you alone. It is for all of us.” 

The road to recognition took more than a decade of thorough medical evaluation and expert review. “There is no cure for ALS,” noted Professor Vincenzo Silani, a leading neurologist involved in the investigation. He was among those who confirmed both the diagnosis and the inexplicability of Raco’s recovery. “Patients are doomed to get a little worse every day.” 

Dr. Alessandro de Franciscis, the permanent doctor at the Lourdes Sanctuary, reminded the audience that the Church considers a healing miraculous only if it is sudden, complete, lasting, medically inexplicable, and not attributable to treatment or gradual recovery.  

These criteria, which continue to guide the Church’s discernment today, were first established by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, later Pope Benedict XIV. 

Debate within the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL) was initially inconclusive when the case was first presented in 2019. But a new international consensus on the diagnosis of ALS, published in 2020, provided the framework for reassessment. In 2023, Silani re-evaluated Raco in Milan and confirmed the definitive cure. 

Finally, in November 2024, a secret vote was held among 21 members of the International Medical Committee of Lourdes: 17 voted in favor of an unexplained, complete, and lasting cure — meeting the two-thirds majority required by Church criteria. 

Following the positive medical vote, the case was referred to the current bishop of Antonia Raco’s home diocese, Vincenzo Carmine Orofino, who formally recognized the miracle on April 16 of this year.  

Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes, who participated in the scientific process without voting, praised the rigor and transparency of the medical discussions. “What impressed me most,” he said, “was the freedom of the experts. They are not there to defend a cause, but to seek the truth.” 

He also reminded the participants that miracles never impose faith. “Even the Resurrection did not force anyone to believe,” he said. “A miracle is a sign — a gift to be received in the light of faith.” 

Closing the press briefing, the rector of the sanctuary, Fr. Michel Daubanes, expressed deep emotion and gratitude as he recalled the honor of announcing the miracle during the 6 p.m. rosary on Holy Thursday, April 17, just minutes before it was proclaimed at the cathedral of Tursi-Lagonegro. “ 

We often say: ‘If I saw a miracle, I would believe.’ But the truth is: if I believe, I can see miracles,” he reflected. “This healing is not just a story from the past. It is a living testimony that continues to bear fruit.” 

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 26, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Catholic marriage and family expert Brad Wilcox is calling for efforts to make having a family in the U.S. “more attractive” in the wake of “troubling” data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing that U.S. fertility rates are at an all-time low.

“It's troubling that we're actually hitting a record low here when it comes to fertility in America,” Wilcox, a sociologist who directs the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, said in an interview with EWTN News Nightly Anchor Mark Irons on July 25.

The CDC released data this week showing the fertility rate in the U.S. plummeted to a record low in 2024.

According to data from the CDC, from 2023 to 2024, the general fertility rate declined from 54.5 to 53.8 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. This means that the general fertility rate was less than 1.6 children per woman in 2024, well below “replacement rate,” which is about 2.1 per woman over the course of her life. 

The CDC also found that in 2024 birth rates for women ages 15 to 34 declined, while rates for women 35 to 39 remained unchanged. Notably, birth rates for women aged 40 to 44 increased by 2%. The CDC further noted that while the general fertility rate declined, the number of births rose 1% from 2023 to 2024 to a total of 3,628,934. 

“This is a pretty marked decline that we’ve been seeing unfolding here in the United States,” Wilcox said, adding: “It’s partly a consequence of the fact that we’re also seeing in recent decades a decline in marriage, which is one of the most important drivers of declining fertility in the U.S.” 

The CDC’s latest report is based on more comprehensive data from birth certificates than provisional data released in April. This year’s data is a continuation of a similar downward trend from last year, which also saw birth and fertility rates drop to record lows. 

At the time, it was the fewest number of babies born in the United States in a year since 1979 and the lowest fertility rate recorded in American history — just under the previous record low set in 2020.

In reaction to the crisis, the Trump administration has made several efforts to incentivize more births, including through provisions in the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed earlier this month such as a $200 increase in the child tax credit and the $1,000 so-called “baby bonus.” The administration has also backed efforts to expand access to in vitro fertilization through an executive order in February. 

Wilcox, who is the author of several books and numerous articles on marriage, fatherhood, parenting, and religion in both academic and popular publications, said “three things are really important” to reverse the societal trend of declining birth rates in the U.S.

In the first place, Wilcox advocated for “making marriage more attractive and attainable.” Secondly, he argued for the need to make owning a home more affordable, especially for first-time buyers. 

Lastly, he said, “the third thing that we need to do is to really make having kids more attractive.” 

“A lot of Americans think today that becoming a parent is a pathway to misery,” he said. “What we've seen in the data is that there are no groups of Americans who are happier than married dads and married moms.”

“I think we need to do a better job of communicating to the broader public how much becoming a parent is a pathway not to misery, but to a life of greater meaning, purpose, and generally happiness,” he concluded. 

Wilcox is a Catholic convert and the father of nine. His most recent book is titled “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.”

CNA Staff, Jul 26, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

President Donald Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes could potentially come into fruition within the next several years with the recent passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allots $40 million to create a park that Trump first proposed during his first term. 

According to the executive order, this national garden would consist of over 200 individuals who embodied “the American spirit of daring and defiance, excellence and adventure, courage and confidence, loyalty and love.”

Among those on the list are five Catholic saints: St. Junípero Serra, St. John Neumann, St. Katharine Drexel, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha, as well as three Catholics whose cause for canonization are ongoing: Venerable Fulton Sheen, Venerable Augustus Tolton, and Servant of God Dorothy Day.

St. Junípero Serra

Born on the island of Petra Mallorca in Spain in 1713, Junípero Serra joined the Franciscans and quickly gained prominence as both a scholar and professor. He later gave up his life in academics to become a missionary in the territory of New Spain. Traveling almost everywhere on foot and practicing various forms of self-mortification, Serra founded mission churches all along the coast — the first nine of the 21 missions in what is today California. He also advocated for the rights of Native peoples.

​​On Aug. 28, 1784, at the age of 70, Junípero Serra died at Mission San Carlos Borromeo from tuberculosis.

St. John Neumann

John Neumann was born on March 28, 1811, in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. After college, he entered the seminary and began reading about missionaries in the United States. Neumann decided to go to America and was ordained just 16 days after his arrival in the new country and sent to Buffalo, New York. 

He lived in a small, log house and hardly ever lit a fire and often lived on only bread and water. He joined the Redemptorist order and continued his missionary work until he was elected bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. As bishop, Neumann built 50 churches, began the construction of a cathedral, and opened almost 100 schools. He died suddenly on Jan. 5, 1860.

He became the first American bishop to be beatified and was canonized by Pope Paul VI on June 19, 1977. He is buried in St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia.

St. Katharine Drexel

Katharine Drexel was born Nov. 26, 1858, into a wealthy and well-connected banking family. While traveling with her family through the Western U.S., Katharine witnessed the poor living conditions of the Native Americans. This inspired the young heiress to devote her whole life to the social and spiritual development of Black and Native American communities.

In February 1891, she made her first vows in religious life and formally renounced her fortune. She went on to start the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament with the purpose of living with these communities while helping them acquire education and grow in faith. Between 1891 and 1935 she led her order in the founding and maintenance of almost 60 schools and missions, located primarily in the American West and Southwest.

She died on March 3, 1955, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on Oct. 1, 2000.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Elizabeth Ann Seton was born to Episcopalian parents into New York City high society on Aug. 28, 1774. After her husband died in 1803, Seton began getting to know the Catholic Church and converted in 1805. Her conversion unleashed a storm among her Protestant relatives and friends and made her financial strains even greater. 

In 1808 she moved to Baltimore and privately took her first vows. In 1812, Seton became the foundress and first superior of the Sisters of Charity in the United States. 

She died in Emmitsburg, Maryland, on Jan. 4, 1821, and was canonized on Sept. 14, 1975 — making her the first American-born person to be canonized. 

St. Kateri Tekakwitha

St. Kateri Tekakwitha, also known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” was born in Auriesville, New York, in 1656 to a Christian Algonquin woman and a pagan Mohawk chief. When three Jesuit priests were visiting her tribe in 1667, they spoke to her of Christ, and though she did not ask to be baptized, she believed in Jesus with an incredible intensity. She also realized that she was called into an intimate union with God as a consecrated virgin.

At the age of 18, Tekakwitha was baptized and shortly after she fled from her village because it had become violent and debauchery was common. She went to the town of Caughnawaga in Quebec, near Montreal, where she grew in holiness and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. She lived out the last years of her short life here, practicing austere penance and constant prayer. She died on April 17, 1680, at the age of 24.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012 — becoming the first Native American to be canonized.

Venerable Fulton Sheen

Born on May 8, 1895, in El Paso, Illinois, Fulton Sheen was ordained a priest in 1919 for the Diocese of Peoria. He earned a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and later taught theology and philosophy at The Catholic University of America.

Sheen gained national fame through his preaching and media presence. In the 1930s and 1940s, he hosted the popular radio program “The Catholic Hour,” and in the 1950s, he reached millions through his Emmy Award-winning television show “Life Is Worth Living.”

In 1951, Sheen was appointed auxiliary bishop of New York, and in 1966, he became the bishop of Rochester, New York. He retired in 1969 but continued to write, preach, and teach until his death. Over his lifetime, he wrote more than 70 books on faith, philosophy, and spirituality.

Sheen died on Dec. 9, 1979, in New York City. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared him venerable. His cause for canonization is ongoing.

Venerable Augustus Tolton

Augustus Tolton was born into slavery in Brush Creek, Ralls County, Missouri, on April 1, 1854, to Catholic parents Peter Paul Tolton and Martha Jane Chisley. Peter Paul escaped shortly after the beginning of the Civil War and joined the Union Army, dying shortly thereafter. In 1862, Augustus Tolton, along with his mother and two siblings, escaped by crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois. 

Tolton began to attend St. Peter’s Catholic School, an all-white parish school in Quincy, Illinois, thanks to the help of Father Peter McGirr. The priest went on to baptize Tolton, instruct him for his first holy Communion, and encouraged his vocation to the priesthood.

No American seminary would accept Tolton because of his race, so he studied for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained in 1886 at the age of 31, becoming the first African American ordained as a priest.

Tolton returned to the U.S. where he served for three years at a parish in Quincy. From there he went to Chicago and started a parish for Black Catholics — St. Monica Parish. He remained there until he died unexpectedly while on a retreat in 1897. He was just 43 years old. 

Tolton’s cause was opened by the Archdiocese of Chicago on Feb. 24, 2011, and on June 12, 2019, Pope Francis declared him venerable.

Servant of God Dorothy Day

Born on Nov. 8, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Chicago, Dorothy Day was baptized Episcopalian at the age of 12. In the 1910s, Day dropped out of college and moved to New York, where she took a job as a reporter for the country’s largest daily socialist paper, The Call.

After years of political activism, personal struggles, and a profound spiritual journey, Day converted to Catholicism in 1927. In 1933, she co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement, which combined direct aid for the poor with nonviolent action on behalf of justice.

Day lived in voluntary poverty, advocating for workers’ rights, racial equality, and peace, even when it meant challenging both Church leaders and government policies. Always speaking up for the marginalized, she was arrested multiple times for acts of civil disobedience.

She died on Nov. 29, 1980, in New York City. On March 16, 2000, the Vatican opened her cause for canonization, and she was declared servant of God, the first official step toward sainthood.

CNA Staff, Jul 26, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Catholics in Nagasaki, Japan, have replaced a bell in a cathedral bell tower there almost exactly 80 years to the day after it was destroyed by the atomic blast that leveled most of the city at the end of World War II.

An international effort to fund the construction and installation of the bell at Urakami Cathedral raised $125,000 in just over a year, with the funds coming from over 600 individual donors, according to Williams College Professor James Nolan.

Nagasaki was one of the two Japanese cities, along with Hiroshima, largely destroyed by the U.S. atomic bombings at the close of World War II. The city was bombed on Aug. 9, 1945, marking the second and last time an atomic bomb was used as an act of war.

Nolan told CNA last year that parishioners at Urakami Cathedral managed to dig up one of the original bells after the bombing and save it; the bell was installed in the cathedral’s right bell tower after it was rebuilt in 1959.

The remaining bell, however, was destroyed, with the second rebuilt tower remaining empty for decades.

Nolan — a sociology professor who came to Nagasaki frequently while writing and researching a book about the local Catholic population’s response to the bombing — said a parishioner at the cathedral, Kojiro Moriuchi, remarked to him at one point that it would be “wonderful if American Catholics gave us the bell for the left tower,” leading the professor to help spearhead the effort to replace the instrument. 

For the professor, his own involvement in the project is personal. His grandfather served as the chief medical officer at the Los Alamos, New Mexico, facility where the atomic bomb was developed and later came with a survey team to both Nagasaki and Hiroshima after the bombs fell.

People “were keen to give, once they learned the story about Nagasaki,” Nolan told CNA this week.

“We reached our goal of $125,000 on July 15,” he said. The funds will pay off the cost of making the bell as well as transporting and installing it, he said. 

“It took about one year and four months to raise the funds. In the final tally there were a total of 628 individual donations,” Nolan said. 

Moriuchi spoke at the blessing ceremony on July 17 and “got a bit choked up,” Nolan said. 

Nagasaki Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura blessed the bell on that date and named it the “St. Kateri Bell of Hope,” according to the Associated Press.

The bell will be officially installed on Aug. 9, eight decades after the parish was leveled by the atomic bomb. Nolan said it will be rung at 11:02 a.m., the exact moment in 1945 when the bomb detonated around 1,600 feet west of the church. 

At the bombing location, a section of wall from the old, destroyed cathedral sits in Nagasaki Peace Park. At the rebuilt parish to the east, meanwhile, Nolan said he hopes the bell “will bear the fruit of fostering hope and peace and solidarity between American and Japanese Catholics.” 

In remarks delivered at the blessing ceremony this month, Nolan said American Catholics learning of the destruction wrought at Nagasaki “expressed sorrow, regret, sadness, and a wish for forgiveness and reconciliation.”

One person, he said, wrote to him: “May the ringing of these bells continue to remind the people of Nagasaki of our sorrow for what their people have endured and reassure them of ours and God’s love for them.”

Another said the bell’s donation was meant “to heal the wounds of this war and progress to world peace.”

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Manila, Philippines, Jul 26, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Ernesto Escaler, a renowned Filipino businessman and the owner of Gourmet Farms Philippines, one of the most iconic restaurant brands in the country, is described as a man of few words but remarkable action.

His staff describe him as deeply low-key — someone who avoids attention and prefers not to speak about his philanthropy. But for the sake of this story, his friends and employees have allowed CNA a glimpse into his quiet, powerful mission.

Every year, he feeds over 3,000 prisoners across three major correctional facilities in the Philippines. He offers them dignity by employing them in planting vegetables, which Gourmet Farms then buys. He also supports the sick cared for by the Missionaries of Charity and Canossian Sisters on top of supporting various other seminaries, convents, and religious communities.

In 2024, Escaler achieved the extraordinary: He persuaded no less than the leader of the Philippines himself, President Bongbong Marcos, to consecrate the entire nation — and the presidential family — to Our Lady of Guadalupe, to whom Escaler is devoted.

He organized public recollections on divine mercy and Marian consecration in four major cities across the country and was instrumental in bringing to life a clergy retreat for 800 priests and 16 bishops.

More than a philanthropist, Escaler is an evangelist in the workplace, bringing the Gospel to his own staff. His entire company — and most of his 400 employees — is consecrated to Mary. One of his biggest priorities as a business owner is to provide spiritual formation to his own staff, providing recollections, booklets, and weekly access to prayer and the sacraments.

At the heart of his company lies a sanctuary — the Sanctuary of St. Joseph — which Escalar built on his 50th birthday 25 years ago.

“We are a consecrated company to Mama Mary. The entire Escaler Group of Companies is consecrated to her,” shared Ginny de Villa, executive director of the Escaler Group.

Escaler takes no credit.

“I am simply being used by Our Lady. It’s not my doing. None of this was planned,” he said. “I am just an instrument. I cannot claim credit for anything.”

Asked if he had any specific “conversion experience,” Escaler stated: “I’ve always grown up praying to Our Lord. We grew up as a very Catholic family … but the ‘a-ha’ moment for me was when I got introduced to Marian consecration and divine mercy.”

In 2017, Father Michael Gaitley, MIC — author of the bestselling book “33 Days to Morning Glory” — came to the Philippines to give a retreat for the Catholic bishops’ conference. Due to the priest’s dietary restrictions, he was housed at Gourmet Farms, where he met Escaler. The two quickly became friends, and Gaitley introduced Escaler to Marian consecration.

“I was taken by it,” Escaler said. The priest later invited Escaler to a pilgrimage in Poland, deepening his understanding of divine mercy and Our Lady’s mission.

“Our Blessed Mother came into this world with one mission: to bring people closer to Jesus. And when you consecrate yourself to her, what you’re doing is you’re giving her permission to use you for her mission. And what is her mission? To bring people to God. So I become an instrument of bringing people to God by virtue of my Marian consecration.” 

“There are many lukewarm Catholics today, each with their own struggles. But I believe Mama Mary can touch their hearts — through people like us, consecrated and willing to be used by her.”

“Look at the world today — war, terrorism, human trafficking, pedophilia — it’s clear Satan is at work. How do we fight back? With the rosary. With Marian consecration. We cannot fight evil on our own. It is Mary who will do the work, and she will use us as her instruments if we consecrate ourselves to her.” 

Consecration in the workplace

Escaler’s commitment to Marian consecration extends deeply into his company.

“It was through Escaler that I was introduced to Marian consecration. It’s powerful,” de Villa said. “If there are Catholics by convention, Marian consecration deepens that so you become Catholics by conviction.”

She added: “Mr. Escaler evangelizes not just through personal testimony but with history. He shared the story of the Battle of Lepanto and showed how Mama Mary was always there, guiding history toward Christ. Her goal is always to bring you closer to her Son and make you a saint in the process. It was gripping and life-changing.”

“The most powerful realization I had was that in Marian consecration, you let Mary take over your life. We are here in the world of business, in the world of control and managing people and situations. But consecration requires total surrender. And that surrender becomes your strength. You are now at her disposal — and it’s liberating.”

The company provides 33-day consecration booklets to staff, offers weekly Mass, First Friday devotions, and Marian feast-day celebrations.

“It’s part of the company culture espoused by Mr. Escaler — that spirituality, that God-centeredness, that devotion to Mama Mary and divine mercy,” de Villa said. “It’s in our DNA.”

A God-centered company

“Many people ask Mr. Escaler, ‘Why do you have a chapel in your business? Why a sanctuary in the middle of the farm?’” Joel Layug, head of human resources, told CNA. 

“Mr. Escaler always tells us, we are a farm. Our business is organic farming. We take care of nature and the environment. To whom else should we go but to the Author of nature? We must turn to the Creator. That’s why at the heart of our farm is this sanctuary.”

“He was very deliberate in calling this the Sanctuary of St. Joseph. He chose St. Joseph because it is through silence that God speaks. St. Joseph was the silent strength. In the whole Gospel, St. Joseph did not speak a single word, and yet he did the Father’s will. That’s the spirit of this place.”

Escaler added: “I built this 25 years ago as a birthday gift to God. It’s a retreat center for people to come and talk to him. And how do you talk to God? In silence, in nature. I don’t advertise it. It’s his sanctuary. I simply built it — and he invites whom he wills.”

Nationwide efforts

Escaler translates his religious piety into concrete works of mercy.

“He feeds prisoners in three major jails, helps the sick cared for by the Missionaries of Charity, and supports many religious communities, but he’s very low-key,” de Villa added. “And he’s very active in spreading Mama Mary’s devotion across the Philippines — especially Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

His greatest passion is to spread divine mercy and Marian consecration not just among his staff but throughout the nation.

“In 2023, Mr. Escaler invited Father Chris Alar, MIC, to give a retreat to 800 priests and 16 bishops,” Layug said. “He also brought Father Chris to the president to consecrate the Philippines to divine mercy.”

What began as a clergy retreat expanded to the laity. Public demand was so overwhelming that he organized events in four major cities. Within hours of opening registration, seats were fully booked.

“When I got Father Chris to say yes, I asked — why not open it to the laity too?” Escaler recounted. “We organized retreats in Quezon City, Alabang, Baguio, and Cavite. People asked, ‘How did you organize a retreat for 5,000 people?’”

“I didn’t invite them. I created the venue, the schedule. She — Mama Mary — invites whomever she wants. I’m just an instrument.”

He also organized a 4,000-person retreat in Davao with Gaitley in the past and personally gave Marian consecration talks in seminaries, convents, dioceses, and even to a group of Franciscans in England.

At 75, does he plan to continue? “Whenever it is needed,” he said. “And she [Mary] will decide when and where. I don’t plan it.”

How does he manage to do it all? His answer is as simple as it is profound: “I just live by example. There’s no other way to speak to people. You have to show them through action.”

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