Dateline: May 2025

As you know the Franciscan friars of our province withdrew from pastoral activity in Lima, Peru in the Fall of 2024. Thus, suddenly after 25 years our relationship with the people there ended. We thank you for all your prayers and support to this apostolate over the last 25 years. 

We are happy to announce to you that after consultation and research, the Sister Parish Committee with our parish administration is initiating a new sister parish relationship with OUR LADY OF FATIMA PARISH, CHINLE, AZ located on the NAVAJO RESERVATION. Our Lady of Fatima is the second oldest Franciscan faith community on the Navajo reservation and the parish currently worships in a beautiful eight-sided hogan-shaped building, constructed in 1989. Chinle is located very close to Canyon de Chelly National Park on Navajo Route 7. Through a network of churches and chapels, the parish serves the spiritual, social, economic, and emotional needs of the people of God in a culturally sensitive way across the central section of Navajo Land. The current pastor is Frair Florecito ‘Pjey” Pabatao, Jr, ofm.

The “parish” consists of a Mission Center and several other churches across the Navajo Land.

MISSION CENTER: Our Lady of Fatima, Chinle
Mission Churches:

• St. Anthony Church, Many Farms, AZ 86538
• St. Mary of the Rosary Church, Piñon, AZ 86510
• St. Isabel Mission Church, Lukachukai, AZ 86507
• Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission, Round Rock, AZ

The Franciscan friars began serving in Navajo Land in 1898 working with St Katherine Drexel and they started the mission in Chinle in 1903. The parish is recognized as a national historic district.

Left: new hogan style church 1989        Center: Spider Woman Rock in Canyon de Chelley.      Right: original church building 1909

Navajo Land is the largest native American reservation in the USA and the Navajo are the largest native nation in the USA. Chinle is 5,627 ft above sea level and is located in a high-altitude desert, cold semi-arid climate in the Four Corners area of the southwest USA.

Chinle (Navajo: Chíńlį́) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Apache County, Arizona, United States located within the Navajo reservation. The name in Navajo means ‘flowing out’ and is a reference to the location where the water flows out of the Canyon de Chelly. Chinle is located 3 hours and 45 minutes from the Grand Canyon Visitor Center. Chinle serves as a gateway community for Canyon de Chelly National Monument. The monument was established in 1931 primarily to preserve the archaeological sites and record of ancient human history. Canyon de Chelly is unique among the National Park Service units because the park is located entirely on Navajo tribal land, and it has a residential community in the canyon.

The Catholic faith communities spread throughout the central region of the reservation are small and family centered. 38% of the people on the Navajo reservation live in poverty, and 19% suffer in extreme poverty. The Navajo people (Diné) face many socio-economic and educational challenges.

The first priority of the sister parish committee is to share our faith with other Catholic communities from different cultural and socio-economic realities. Teaming up with the Diocese of Joliet Office of Missions, which has been working in Chile for over 20 years, we will be offering mission service trips to Chinle beginning in June 2026. We want to invite young adults and adults to consider participating in these mission service experiences. The mission trips will be similar to the trips to Peru with the opportunity for physical labor in building/maintenance of parish buildings and/or homes as well as other service projects and activities for folks who cannot do physical labor. There will also be opportunities for folks who cannot travel to support the missions and/or to establish faith contacts with members of the parish in Chinle.

A small group from our sister parish committee hopes to visit Our Lady of Fatima Parish in the Fall 2025 to begin this new chapter of faith sharing alongside the Franciscan friars with the poorest of the poor. More information will be available to you after the Fall visit.

Please continue to support us through your prayers as we begin a new faith sharing relationship with the faith community of OUR LADY OF FATIMA, Chinle, AZ among the Navajo.