For nearly 85 years, Holy Redeemer Church and School in Callowhill has served as a beacon of light for parishioners, particularly for Philadelphia’s Chinese community, writes Kaiden J. Yu for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
In October 1941, Holy Redeemer Chinese Catholic Church and School was dedicated, becoming the first Catholic church in the Western Hemisphere to be built specifically for Chinese Americans.
Since then, the institution has become a beloved and integral part of the Chinatown community. It has been able to not only provide religious and spiritual services, but educational opportunities for new immigrants and their families.
“We have parishioners who are 100 years old, born in the United States and don’t speak Chinese, and we have people here who came last week. … We keep all those people in the same church community, and I think that’s pretty extraordinary,” said Rev. Tom Betz, who has been a pastor at Holy Redeemer church since 1991.
A large part of Chinatown’s history of community activism started at Holy Redeemer during the 1960s.
When a proposal to expand Vine Street into an interstate expressway threatened to demolish much of the neighborhood, the subsequent protests eventually led to the founding of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC).
Read more about Holy Redeemer Church and the current challenges it is facing in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
_____
Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on PHILADELPHIA Today in August 2023.
