{"id":298872,"date":"2025-10-13T03:13:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T03:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/298872\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T03:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T03:13:14","slug":"sacred-heart-church-in-phoenix-honors-hispanic-heritage-and-community-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/298872\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacred Heart Church in Phoenix honors Hispanic heritage and community roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we\u2019re revisiting a place in Phoenix you may have driven by, but might not know much about: the historic Sacred Heart Church<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It was built in the 1950\u2019s near 16th Street and Buckeye Road<\/a>. \u201cIt could be just a building, if a contractor built it,\u201d said Abe Arvizu. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t built by a contractor.\u201d <\/p>\n

Arvizu is the chairman of the Braun Sacred Heart Center. It\u2019s a non-profit established in the 1980\u2019s to protect the building. The first mass was held there in 1954, and people in the then-Golden Gate barrio helped build it.<\/p>\n

\u201c1602 East Maricopa was my address,\u201d he said. \u201cI lived there my whole life until we got booted out.\u201d Arvizu remembers the time well. He grew up in the barrio before he and others were bought out under eminent domain when the airport was expanded. The church is the last remnant of the Golden Gate community. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy cousins, as young girls, they used to go around on Monday after pay day Friday after the weekend,\u201d Arvizu said. \u201cAnd they would collect nickels and dimes and pennies to pay for the brick.\u201d <\/p>\n

The church is on the National Register of Historic Places. The pews sit empty most of the year, except for Christmas Day mass. There\u2019s no electricity in the building, but generators are brought in for the holiday. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur founder was a WWII chaplain,\u201d said Father Estevan Wetzel, the current pastor of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. \u201cI also happened to serve in the Army National Guard, but in my heart I\u2019m just excited about continuing his legacy of service.\u201d <\/p>\n

Father Albert Braun originally founded the church. In the last few decades, the diocese had done substantial renovations, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, priorities shifted, and now the restoration is on hold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like one big family,\u201d Arvizu said. \u201cYou know different names, different backgrounds, different religions. But growing up in the barrios they took care of us. We worked together.\u201d<\/p>\n

While photographs fade over time, the memories haven\u2019t for Arvizu. \u201cThe traditions of the Hispanic people, the traditions of us is actually the voice of the dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The diocese says the church will have mass this Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we\u2019re revisiting a place in Phoenix you may have…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":298873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7182,152222,152223,101743,152224,1589,152225,7183,152221,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-298872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-azfamily","12":"tag-barrio","13":"tag-golden-gate-community","14":"tag-hispanic-heritage-month","15":"tag-historic-churches-arizona","16":"tag-phoenix","17":"tag-phoenix-landmarks","18":"tag-phoenix-news","19":"tag-sacred-heart-church","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115364679325209444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}