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In remembrance of Father Gino, a dedicated carpenter and priest
The first time I met Father Gino Piccoli, he was shuffling around barefoot inside the St. Charles Church* on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, a bandana wrapped around his forehead and tools on the floor. He had been working on the interior of the church throughout the afternoon. I had heard Piccoli had done great things with the church, and was there to see for myself.
It was the first and last time I saw him. Months later, I learned that Piccoli passed away in April on his way to the hospital, after 16 years spent serving as the church friar. He was 72.Amongst other things, Piccoli devoted himself to renovating the church, I was later told. A carpenter by nature, Gino was constantly building and repairing.
“There had been nothing done since the early 1900s,” says Piccoli’s brother Richard. “Everything you see in the church, he did.”
Piccoli and his two siblings hailed from Chicago, where he was born in 1940. His family later relocated to Arizona. At age 13, he told his parents he was going to Santa Barbara to become a priest, and he left home. As promised, he was ordained a Franciscan priest by 1965. He came to the Diocese of Tucson in June 1997, following assignments as close as California and as far as Guatemala.
He also traveled to Japan and Peru. Then he volunteered to serve at San Carlos.
“He was a very devoted priest,” Richard says of his brother. “He wanted to live like St. Francis, for the poor.”
He was eager to help people, Lorena Denver recalls. Denver spent 14 years working as an accountant at the church alongside Piccoli. Whenever someone from the tribe came to him asking for help, whether it was to buy gas, groceries, or Pampers, or to pay for an electric bill, he wrote checks from his personal account.
As he became familiar with San Carlos and its residents, Piccoli began to incorporate Apache traditions into Mass, and restructure the church to represent Apache culture.
He changed the church with the seasons, using feathers and yellow pollen to bless the bread, burning cedar leaves, and arranging the chairs in a circle facing each other.
He encouraged members to say the name of the Father in Apache, which Denver could never get the hang of. He even started using an Apache drum, she remembers.
Piccoli’s efforts to reinforce Apache tradition in the church did not sit well with everyone, and some churchgoers began to attend other churches in Globe or Miami.
“I was alright with it, I thought it was good,” Denver says. “He told us that this was our culture, our tradition, that we should pray in our own language.”
He also painted Mary and Jesus the ‘Apache way’.
“He was trying to show us we can worship Jesus in our own image,” Denver explains. “I thought that was neat.”
In addition to making transformative changes throughout the church, he was constantly repairing. He covered the exposed ceiling. He redid the kitchen and the hall.
For the last four and a half years, Piccoli rarely had a moment of rest. Thursday through Sunday he was working on the church, or in Mass. Then on Sunday evenings he would drive to Phoenix and care for his ailing sister, who has Alzheimer’s disease, until he had to return to the reservation again.
He often worked from 5 in the morning until 11 at night, Richard remembers, eating maybe once a day. He told Richard that “it was for them [the Apaches] and for himself.”
Aside from Richard and his sons, few people assisted Piccoli. Denver recalls often watching him work alone.
Nonetheless, his efforts were far-reaching.
“After he died, a lot of women came here crying their eyes out,” Denver says. “I didn’t think there was that many people that loved him, because he really struggled.”
When he passed away, the Apaches held a great ceremony for him. They had a bonfire for him outside the church, while someone prayed inside throughout the night.
“It was quite the send off for Gino,” Richard says.
Following that, Masses were held in San Carlos and in Scottsdale at the Franciscan Renewal Center.
“The church could only hold 300, but there must have been 500 people there,” he says.
Finally, the carpenter who funneled all of his energy into building something greater than himself had been noticed.
Piccoli’s ashes are buried in Santa Barbara by the Mission.
Jenn Walker began writing for Globe Miami Times in 2012 and has been a contributor ever since. Her work has also appeared in Submerge Magazine, Sacramento Press, Sacramento News & Review and California Health Report. She currently teaches Honors English at High Desert Middle School and mentors Globe School District’s robotics team.
