New pastor offers pledge to help the most vulnerable

FR. ROBERT
Rev. Robert Aliunzi with one of the orphans helped by E3-Africa.

The Rev. Robert Aliunzi is one of West Chandler’s newest residents but he’s already gained thousands of new friends.

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Named the pastor of St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church, Aliunzi heads up the second-largest Catholic parish in the Phoenix metro area. The mission-style church that sits on Ray Road just east of the 101 Loop is home to just shy of 6,000 families.

Though Aliunzi’s previous assignment was at a church one tenth the size, he said the adjustment has gone well. He’s been a priest for 25 years.

“I think the parish is very generous, very welcoming. The day I was introduced was overwhelming because I got so much support, so much welcome and excitement,” Aliunzi said.

A native of Uganda, Aliunzi came to the U.S. in 2004. Orphaned at an early age after his mother and aunts drowned in the Nile River, he was one of the youngest children in a family of 10. He said his eldest brother who was 17 married and became the family patriarch. Unlike the U.S., there was no free public education. His brothers struggled to Aliunzi’s tuition.

A bright student, teachers would often help him hide from the headmaster who came around to collect fees. It was the generosity of others that allowed Aliunzi to receive an education. He went on to earn a master’s degree from Makerere Univesity, the Harvard of his homeland.

In 1997, he left his post as assistant registrar at Makerere and became principal of a high school where many of the students were refugees from neighboring, war-torn Sudan.

“Many refugees were orphans so I easily connected,” Aliunzi said.

It became his unfortunate responsibility to send away those students who couldn’t pay, but he didn’t have the heart to do it. Aliunzi and resolved to help them by growing vegetables which he would later sell.

In 2005, after coming to the U.S., he became pastor of a parish in Glendale where he co-founded E3-Africa, a non-profit organization to help needy children in Uganda receive an education. So far, 152 children have been sponsored. E3-Africa has expanded its efforts and plans to build a school in Uganda are underway.

St. Andrew, he said, already supports an orphanage in Haiti.

“This parish is big on outreach programs.” The orphans in Haiti, he added, are “the same as the orphans as in Uganda, it only happened they are in another geographic location, but their needs are the same.”

E-3 Africa, he said, has grown steadily since its founding and he hopes to one day bring the program to St. Andrew. People are already asking him about it, he said.

“God has blessed us so tremendously and to whomever is given more, more is expected, so it’s our moral and spiritual and pastoral responsibility to reach out to the most vulnerable and in this case, to reach out to the orphans. We are going to move in that direction to share whatever gifts God has given us with those who need it the most,” Aliunzi said.

 

Comments

  1. St. Andres has received a great blessing in receiving Fr. Robert as their pastor. He is an amazing man and feel blessed to call him friend. May God continue to bless you Fr. Robert.

  2. Sunday, February 14, 2016 Father Robert Aliunzi is scheduled to be installed at the 9:00am Mass as the head Priest of St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Community in Chandler, Arizona by the Phoenix Diocese Bishop, Thomas Olmsted. Sunday is also Valentine’s Day and Arizona’s Statehood Day. How appropriate for our Faith, and our Community that we officially receive the Love and Leadership of a wonderful Man of God guiding us to touch more lives. Blessings, Father Robert and all members of our Parish and Faith.

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