'We all have a place in the Father's house'
by Benjamin Shane Evans | October 20, 2026
As Bishop William Joensen was preparing to speak at the Pope Leo Village wall-raising ceremony on Tuesday, October 20, his stumbled from the podium. Des Moines Mayor Connie Boesen offered to brace the podium for the remainder of his blessing, and the Bishop accepted.
“The technology was not on my side, so she was willing to hold my little binder and everything else,” Bishop Joensen said later. “I joked about that, though she's not Catholic, she could be like an altar server at that moment.”
That moment rang true as a living symbol of the significance of the event, a ceremony which saw the rising of the first walls of Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity’s multi-family affordable housing project in the River Bend neighborhood called the Pope Leo Village. This effort has united communities throughout the Des Moines area under a common goal to provide affordable housing.
“I think for the Village here in Des Moines and around the country to bear [Pope Leo XIV’s] name speaks to the better part of ourselves, our better angels, that we do want that,” Bishop Joensen said after the ceremony. “We want to be able to abide in peace and allow others to find their light path with our support as we come together.”
Lance Henning, CEO of Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity, also commented on this movement towards the Pope Leo Village helping to unite.
“For us, [we are] able to engage the faith community in an initiative to honor Pope Leo and to be able to see this happening not just in Des Moines but also happening in 22 cities across the U.S.,” Henning said his address at the wall-raising ceremony. “It's an interfaith movement, uniting people together when others may have tried to pull us apart. I think I saw that Pope Leo said from the balcony of St. Peter's to collaborate, to construct bridges through dialogue and encounter people, and Habitat for Humanity is about bringing people together to build homes, community, and hope.”
Dowling High School students will participate in the construction of this village.
“Soon, this Saturday soon, this community will engage in hands-on work to build the six houses and cabinets,” Dowling High School student Grayer Krantz said in his address to the crowd. “Later, students will return this fall to build cabinets again for the Pope Leo Village and. Continue to round out this project that we're so grateful to be a part of. I hope that our dedication, effort, and love for the community will be just as inspiring to you as all of yours is to us.”
Bishop Joensen said after the ceremony that though there are so many things that “tear at the fabric and sow seeds of division,” this project could be a movement towards unity.
“I think the fact that the material that's being constructed today, the walls that are being raised, is for us Catholics a kind of sacramental, the hospitality of God that we all have a place in the Father's house,” Bishop Joensen said.