Power grab: Perez felt his calling early. At age 7, he wanted to be an altar boy, but didn’t attend Catholic grade school. So he took matters into his own hands. “I went in and put on the altar server stuff,” he recalls. “Then I just showed up at the altar. I remember the priest looked at me and said, ‘Who are you?’ ”
His secret weapon: Perez earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from Montclair State University in New Jersey. “It helps me to ask certain questions and has made me very sensitive to people’s feelings. In the end, it informs even the decisions I make administratively.”
With power comes … “It’s about serving people in their human and spiritual needs and bringing to bare on them the care and the love of God and the community that surrounds them. It’s about the power of love.”
People person: An extrovert, Perez is fluent in Spanish and English. “I’m energized by people. I enjoy being around people. I thank God he made me that way.”
Taking issue: While Perez doesn’t get involved in politics, he considers two “political” issues that he says are actually moral issues — the defense of human life and immigration. “It’s the sanctity of family and keeping family together.”
On Cuba: Perez has seen politics at its worst, including one relative who was incarcerated for 18 years. “Most of my uncles and one of my aunts were political prisoners, many of them for religious reasons.”
How Catholics can change Cleveland: There is only one thing anyone needs to change their community and the world. “A servant’s heart, especially in meeting the needs of the poor and vulnerable in their midst.”