But the new residents were slow to discover St. Cecilia's, whose clergy remained distant. Church doors were kept locked. The pastor didn't speak Spanish, and the church's aging sound system sent the Sunday homily echoing off the concrete walls. Masses rarely topped 200 people, a fraction of the church's capacity.
Eventually the pastor, realizing that new times required new skills, invited the Combonis, an order of missionary priests, to run St. Cecilia's.
Zanotto arrived in 1997. He had spent 13 years in Mexico and was fluent in Spanish.
He embraced St. Cecilia's new neighbors. He unlocked the church and its rectory, and hired a Spanish-speaking secretary. He brought in nuns from Colombia to go door to door, asking residents what they might need. He held annual posadas, a Mexican Christmas celebration.
Then in 2000, Oaxacan immigrants from San Francisco Cajonos approached Zanotto about holding a special party and Mass to raise money for their Mexican village. Among them was Hector Mata.
Since arriving in the United States 42 years ago, Mata had started his own gardening business, learned English, sent two daughters to college and become a citizen. The only part of his life that had not changed was his relationship with the Catholic Church.
Zanotto urged the Oaxacans to arrange the Mass themselves. He told them the church was theirs, but so was the responsibility for organizing and promoting the service.
Zanotto knew Oaxaca. He had served for seven years in an Indian parish in the Oaxacan mountains in the 1970s. He lived in a thatched hut and rode a horse to the remotest of his parish's 40 villages.
The church anchored the mountain villages, but priests were a rare sight, so native Indians ran their own services. Decisions were made communally, as they had been for centuries. When a priest did arrive, he ran things without input from church members.
Oaxacan villages have "a sense of community that the church is the contradiction of," Zanotto said.
His experience in Mexico prompted years of reflection on the role of the priest and his parishioners.
The priest, Zanotto came to believe, must put his ego aside and trust his flock to take the church reins. Then, he said, their faith would deepen.
So when Mata and the others came to him, Zanotto asked them to arrange a Mass for all Oaxacans.
After two months of publicity, they organized a Mass attended by 300 people.
