By Pat McCaughan
Posted May 11, 2021
The Rev. Yesenia Alejandro, the Diocese of Pennsylvania’s Hispanic missioner and vicar of Philadelphia’s Church of the Crucifixion, addresses worshippers before a Tuesday food distribution. The church, which was shuttered before Alejandro took over, provides food to some 1,000 people weekly. Photo: Courtesy of Yesenia Alejandro
[Episcopal News Service] Six months after making history as the first Latina ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, the Rev. Yesenia Alejandro is now feeding an average of 1,000 people a week at a South Philadelphia church that until recently had been shuttered.
“When I got ordained a priest, the bishop said to me, ‘We’re going to appoint you as Hispanic missioner,’” Alejandro told Episcopal News Service recently. “Right after that, they told me about this church that was closed and said, ‘Go there and reopen it.’ I said OK.”