OLPH priest honored for lifetime of service

Charles Velasquez-Witosky

OLPH priest honored for lifetime of service
Alexa Avilés speaks during the street co-naming ceremony. Father Karl Esker, who now leads the Juan Neumann Center, stands with his eyes closed on the right side of the photograph. Photo by Charles Velasquez-Witosky.

Redemptorist priest Father Ruskin Piedra was honored on Sunday, Oct. 19 for his lifetime of service to various communities, particularly Hispanic immigrants in New York.

Following simultaneous masses at Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH) — one in English and one in Spanish — there was a civic ceremony where community leaders spoke and revealed the new street sign for Congregación del Santísimo Redentor Padre Ruskin Piedra Way. The sign is situated on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, next to OLPH, where Piedra served as a priest from 1998 until his passing in 2024.

More than 1,500 community members joined the civic ceremony, including Council Member Alexa Avilés, who praised Piedra’s character during the ceremony, as well as Father Rogério Gomes, Superior General of the Redemptorists, the congregation of priests and brothers to which Piedra belonged. Gomes traveled from Rome to attend the ceremonies.

What brought so many, and from so far, to celebrate the life of Piedra was the impact he made during his lifetime. The most significant of his achievements was the establishment of the Juan Neumann Center more than 25 years ago, which provides legal assistance to immigrants seeking citizenship in the United States. According to the center, they have helped more than 2,000 immigrants gain legal American citizenship.

Since Piedra’s passing, Father Karl Esker, another priest at OLPH, has taken up the mantle and is now the leader of the center, continuing the mission of advocating for immigrants. At present, he is seeking certification so that he may represent individuals in immigration court without passing the New York State Bar, work that Piedra did before him.

Esker said he accepted the task of taking over Piedra’s work for the same reasons he believes Piedra got into the work in the first place, besides Piedra being the child of Cuban immigrants himself.

“Immigrants are so vulnerable in this country, and they are taken advantage of. They are abused by employers. If they ask to be paid, their bosses threaten to call ICE. They end up in abusive marriages, where their citizen spouses say, ‘You do what I want you to do, or I call ICE.’ Then these immigrants go to lawyers to help them gain citizenship, they are taken advantage of by them as well. The lawyers take their money, tens of thousands of dollars, and then do nothing for them,” he said. “I just couldn’t take watching that. And I don’t think Father Piedra could either.”

The center itself is named after John Neumann, a 19th-century Redemptorist priest who assisted German immigrants in the United States. Neumann is, to date, the only American male citizen to have been canonized as a saint.

Although Piedra was known widely for his immigration work, he was equally, if not more known, for being a good neighbor and friend.

“He would wake up at 4 a.m., do his exercises, then walk around the neighborhood,” Father Manuel Rodríguez Delgado said. “He was a great visitor, going to see families, responding to their needs, sharing with them.”

Mayrlen Olivera, a longtime congregant of OLPH who worked with Piedra in the assistance of children with special needs, said that Piedra changed her life in myriad ways. Through Rito de Iniciación Cristiana de Adultos (RICA), a class for adults to receive their Catholic sacraments, Piedra helped her and her husband receive their sacraments. For her, Piedra helped her find her faith after having grown up without a religious practice. And for her children, she shared that they loved spending time with him. “Whenever my son felt sad, he would talk to Father Piedra. My son said that if he got 15 minutes with Father Piedra, everything would get better.”

María Palomeque, another congregant who received her first Communion and confirmation through RICA, spoke with glowing admiration of Piedra. “He was an incredible spiritual guide and always had the best words of advice. He would always say to me, ‘My dear, don’t worry, everything will be all right.’”

At the conclusion of the street co-naming ceremony, before members of the church moved inside to share a meal and memories of Father Piedra, the crowd joined in singing “Guantanamera,” a patriotic Cuban song. Many cried as they sang. Someone in the crowd called out, “Clap so loud he can hear us in heaven,” and the applause swelled.