Father Paolo Capra stood in a crowd outside an Istanbul cathedral on Friday, half a world away from his parish in Pleasant Grove.
Capra was waiting for a glimpse of Pope Leo XIV. He had a simple request: for the pontiff to bless a single brick destined to be the first laid in the new Dallas church for his working-class flock more than 6,000 miles away.
“This stone,” Capra told Christopher Lamb, CNN’s Vatican correspondent, in an interview, “would like to be the first stone of the new church that we want like to build in the parish of St. Augustine in Dallas.”
Capra said he hopes to one day build a larger, “more beautiful” church. Their current church — located on St. Augustine Road — is too small to hold the 500 people in their congregation, most of them low-income and immigrants from Mexico, he said.
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The church has set a goal of $17 million for the first phase of the project, according to information on its website.
Renderings on the church’s website show a bright, white sanctuary with a green roof and a tower capped with a cross. A glass entryway is framed by the white brick, with an anchor-and-cross emblem above the main doors.
Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Turkey was his first foreign trip as pope. Waiting for his arrival, Capra held the brick, which bore the words “First stone,” his church’s name and 2026.
“So you hope he will bless that when he goes past?” Lamb asked.
“We hope so,” Capra responded.
To the sound of cheers, Pope Leo XIV stepped toward Capra’s group and clasped their outstretched hands as they told him they were visiting from Dallas.
He took note of the brick Capra held and waved a cross over it in blessing.
“¡Viva el Papa! ¡Viva el Papa!” they called out.