Priest builds church with his own hands in Chiclayo, Peru, Pope Leo XIV’s former diocese

Lima Newsroom, Sep 23, 2025 / 06:00 am

When a priest says he’s building a church, a school, or some other project, he usually means he’s ultimately responsible for the construction, not that he’s the one who is actually building it. But that isn’t the case for Father Javier Cajusol Villegas, who is building a church with his own hands in a poor area of the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, where Pope Leo XIV was bishop .

“In the seminary, there’s a program in which we study Church history. I was taught by an American priest who explained things very well, Father Ricardo Mullen. He said that when the Spanish came to the Americas, they brought with them priests who were also architects and engineers and that they themselves were the ones who built the churches,” Cajusol related in an interview