num. 522 - May 2012

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LATIN AMERICA

“On behalf of the General Administration of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, based in Rome, Italy, I would like to express our support to the President of the Department of Justice and Solidarity of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM), Mgr. Pedro Barreto Jimeno, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Huancayo and Vice President of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, and to the technical team of the Project ‘Mantaro Revive’ for the death threats received over the telephone on March 2, 2012”. This is how the letter of solidarity from the General Administration of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) to Archbishop Pedro Barreto begins. It is signed by Fr. Gilberto PIÑÓN GAYTÁN, Second Assistant General, and is addressed to the “public opinion, political and civil authorities of Peru”.

Fr. Gerry LESTRAT was a missionary in Guatemala for several years before returning to OMI Lacombe Province in Canada.

In January, I had the joy of visiting Guatemala again after being away for three years and was pleased to find some progress despite the hardships these people face. I found that not much had physically changed in the City of Guatemala and the interior of the country. January is a good time to visit because the rains and the hurricane sea­son are over and everything is still beautiful and green in the countryside.

Violence, however, remains a large part of their lives. With the tragedy that it generates, people are tired and afraid. They feel the violence seems to be increasing. The causes are gang and drug related. Because of lack of employment and pov­erty, there is much robbery, kidnapping and outright killing for insignificant reasons. When I was there a priest was mur­dered on the highway because he bumped a pickup truck that stopped in front of his car. No damage was done but a short argument occurred, then the two in the truck shot the priest in cold blood. They were later arrested because the whole scene was videoed by a service station on the side of the road.

Another aspect that did not change is the friendliness and warmth of the people. Of course the majority are good people; they are a jolly people despite the poverty and the hardships they have to endure. The churches are full and the participa­tion in the liturgies is fully alive.

I visited our Oblate missions in the city and in El Quiche. I arrived at Cunen, my first mission, and the recep­tion was fabulous. A college was built there with the help of Canadian donations. They now have 450 students in that high school where they train students to become teachers. It is a beautiful place set in a valley by a small river. They have deco­rated their college of 15 classrooms with beautiful Mayan col­ors and flowers. The students and teachers are very happy there and are so thankful for the Canadian support. They graduate 50 students every year and have been in operation for 10 years.

I found the municipality of Cunen did change over the years and the director of the college said it is because all those young teachers, men and women, have been working as teachers in the remote villages and return home to help the economy of the family. Small hotels, restaurants and new homes have been built in town. Vehicles or motorbikes are used to travel to the schools or for home businesses. There are new fleets of vans for public transport, replacing the big, old chicken busses that used to compete on the country roads for more passengers and every so often caused accidents.

During my three weeks in Guatemala I had the chance to visit my old parish of Chicaman. I was pleased to spend the night in a beautiful room of the new priest’s residence. The building of a new house was necessary because water was coming through the roof of the old one that was built 50 years prior. When I was there, we had 70 villages in that parish, and now there are 76. The population is growing constantly at a high rate, and half the population is under 20 years of age.

I also had the joy of visiting Playa Grande in the northern part of Quiche. It is in a jungle area. Three Oblates are assigned there, and three congregations of sisters also work in that par­ish. There are 125 villages formed by a variety of Mayan peo­ple speaking different languages. There is a clinic run by the Sisters of Charity, a large social pastoral centre, a radio station and a centre for training catechists. This area is also conducive for the production of drugs, so this brings on another aspect that the church ministers have to deal with.

It gives me great joy to say the Oblate family is growing in Guatemala. We now have three young Guatemalan priests active in the missions. Ten Oblate seminarians from Guatemala are studying in Mexico and shortly one more will be ordained to the priesthood. Others are in the novitiate, still others are in the pre-novitiate and there is also a group preparing to enter pre-novitiate. I thank the Holy Spirit and the Oblates who are attending to this development of new missionaries. Hopefully, in the future, some of these Guatemalan Oblates will ask to come and minister in Canada to spread their joy and the Gospel among us. (Oblate Spirit, April 2012)

The provincial of Paraguay, Fr. Francisco CARILLO has announced that the Oblates have accepted the responsibility of ministering to the faithful at the Shrine of the Virgin of Itacuá in the diocese of Encarnación. Fr. Francisco stated further that the mission of the Oblates will be to “…advance the pastoral plan of the diocese, especially in reference to the Continental Mission and the Permanent Mission of Paraguay: To evangelize the family.

“We want to give this privileged place of nature a sacred character where the pilgrim can have a living experience of Jesus the Savior and Son of Mary and can praise the Creator in the midst of this blessed land.”

The director of the Shrine is Fr. Andrés CZEKAJ; he will work closely with the pastor of the neighboring parish of St. Michael the Archangel, Fr. José ORZECHOWSKI. Closely collaborating with the Oblates in the Shrine will be the diocesan auxiliary Bishop, Claudio Silvero.

According to Wickipedia, the shrine is the site of “…one of the most important Marian devotions in the region, known also as the ‘Virgin of the poor.’

“As the story goes, the Virgin appeared to people as they crossed by the place, helping them to avoid colliding with the rocks of the riverbed which are very numerous in that part of the river and which constitute a danger for the safety of the boats. In the early 20^th century, through the efforts of Divine Word Missionaries, a small statue of the Virgin, brought from Europe, was placed in a grotto. From then on, the custom of pilgrimages to the place grew.”

He was 31 years old when he was sent from the cold of Germany to be a missionary in the “green hell” as they used to call the Chaco area at that time. Today, Paraguay has become “my land,” says Father Norberto SCHLECHTER, signaling that he is not thinking of packing his bags for a final trip to old Europe. This is something that hundreds of people appreciate who come each week to the simple chapel of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, at Villa Morra, to receive advice, hope, and above all, the so necessary sacrament of pardon.

The silence in the lovely chapel is frequently interrupted. The sharp and creaking sound of hinges share the space and mark the coming and going of young people and adults to this place in Villa Morra. All of this is due to this man of 78 years, who behind a discrete, light-colored door, daily and for several hours, fulfills his task, “his mission,” as he would say: hearing the confessions of those who wish to receive the sacrament of reconciliation.

Fr. Norbert lives his vocation primarily in a tiny space in this chapel, ventilated by a simple wall fan. He has been a priest for 48 years, but he does not remember at what age he entered the seminary. “When you get old, the memory fails you,” he adds, as he gives his quirky smile, a gesture that transforms his rigid features into expressions of warmth and tenderness.

His humor is constant, like the serenity and peace that he transmits by speaking with his legs resting on a bench -- due to the “infirmities of old age,” as he likes to say -- sitting in the little confessional, daily hearing the confessions of young persons and adults, including seminarians, priests and sisters who come to the place to receive the sacrament of reconciliation.

“It’s a good service (confession), but it is also tiring when you are there all day, but I am the only beggar who has time for that,” he laughs. And as he settles into his chair, he adds that he has never thrown anyone out. “You just have to hope,” assures the religious who was born to a family of coal miners.

Besides the confessions, he takes communion to the sick of the barrio and celebrates Mass in this chapel, known for its celebrations in the German language, and sometimes also in French, for the Catholic foreigner communities.

“Paí Norberto,” as some like to call him, says that in the matter of the sacrament of Penance, one cannot speak of feelings but of a reality: it is God’s pardon, beyond what “we feel”, when there is repentance and a desire to change, trust in God and confession of sins, states the German priest, born in 1933 in a city in the area of Dormund. (Comunicaciones, Easter 2012)