Priest built lay ministry at Hispanic mission in Palatine

A variety of lay ministers help to administer activities at Mission San Juan Diego in Arlington Heights, including several deacons, a religious education director and music minister.

They work in partnership with its pastor, the Rev. John Bosco Jimenez-Garcia, in ministering to the needs of the growing Spanish speaking community.

Officials with the Archdiocese of Chicago credit the Rev. John Enright with fostering participation by parishioners in the running of the mission. He served as pastor of its predecessor, Santa Teresita in Palatine, from 1994 to 1997. The church’s name was changed to Mission San Juan Diego when it moved to Arlington Heights in 2003.

Fr. Enright died Monday at St. Benedict Home in Niles. He was 83.

“John felt that lay people can be the church, and can do ministry,” said the Rev. Don Headley. “That’s what he believed, and he worked at it all his life.”

The two priests worked together at another Archdiocesan mission, in Panama, starting in 1964, immediately after the Second Vatican Council, when churches were urged to include lay participation.

“John didn’t know the language when he started, but he had a real sense of mission and of ministry,” adds Headley, now a senior priest at St. Mary of the Woods Church in Chicago.

They worked in a rural village named San Isidro, in a parish that served 13 surrounding communities.

“We were all over the place,” Headley says.

He adds that it was more than necessity that drove them to encourage lay participation. Both believed that direct involvement by parishioners was the future of the church, Headley said.

One of Chicago’s auxiliary bishops, John Manz, joined them in Panama for a summer when he was a young seminarian.

“(Fr. Enright) loved the people, particularly the very poor, who came to the parish from outlying rural areas,” Manz said. “He focused on providing leadership training for them.”

Fr. Enright served at the mission in Panama until 1976, when it had grown to include more than 50 communities.

When he returned to Chicago, Fr. Enright served as pastor of Epiphany Parish on the Near West Side of Chicago before accepting the pastorship of Santa Teresita in Palatine, which had started in 1961 as a mission of St. Theresa Church in Palatine.

“He tried to pull more people into becoming involved in the mission,” Headley says. “He started the diaconate program there and encouraged many to become involved in lay ministry.”

Fr. Enright is survived by three sisters, Elizabeth Enright, Maureen Krickl and Margaret Kerrigan, and two brothers, James and Dan Enright.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11:15 a.m. Saturday at St. John of the Cross Church, 5005 Wolf Road in Western Springs. The Rev. John Gorman, retired auxiliary bishop of Chicago, will be the main celebrant, while Headley will deliver the homily.