the church in chimbote

Since studying a bit of liberation theology in college I have developed a strong interest in the Catholic church and how it lives out its mission, but I had no idea what I was getting immersed in by joining the Incarnate Word Sisters in Peru.  I really had no intention of getting super involved in parish activities… and then by some strange twist of fate (or maybe that’s just how God works) the parish work here just drew me in.  It has been in many aspects frustrating, in others encouraging, in others very life-giving.  I have definitely seen mixed signals of the vitality of the church in Chimbote… we face challenges of participation and commitment, but we also have many religious and lay people are who dedicated to building the reign of God here in Chimbote.  

This week was the Diocesan Assembly to reveal the pastoral strategy for the coming year in light of the most recent Latin American bishops conference, Aparecida (a conference in which the bishops gather to re-orient the direction of the Latin American church).  I really enjoyed hearing the bishop speak on this topic – he spoke very passionately and directly about the challenges and opportunities facing the Church in Chimbote.  Always being a bit cynical I would have liked to hear more about our personal responsibility to restore dignity to the poor and less about the need to make sure young people learn the Creed… but it was made clear that the Church has a preferential option for the poor, and I do understand that there are real problems with catechesis programs here, so I’m overall pretty satisfied.  He also said that every family should have a copy of Aparecida in their home, which is pretty amazing, especially for me, coming from the U.S., where it seems very, very few people actually read anything put out by the bishops.

Along the same lines, our monthly diocesan newspaper came out this month and included an article written by a Spanish priest who works in San Luis, one of Chimbote’s “young towns/pueblos jóvenes” (area of new development, but very poor development with terrible living conditions).  He offers a great introduction to the message of Aparecida and the preferential option for the poor, which I have written about before.  I liked it so much that I took the liberty of translating it into English so you all could read it and understand a little bit more about the role the Catholic Church plays, or should play, or tries to play and often fails, or plays in some occasions but not others (you get the point), in Latin America and in the world.  I especially love his interpretation of charity, which is inseparable from a critical assessment of the structural causes of poverty.  Enjoy.

The Church and the hope of the poor

by Father Fernando AsínCastellón (Mar Adentro, January 2011)

“(The option for the poor) asks us to dedicate time to the poor, pay kind attention to them, listen to them with interest, and accompany them in their most difficult moments, choosing to share with them hours, weeks, or years of our lives and searching with them to transform their situation” (Aparecida, 397).

“All that which has to do with Christ has to do with the poor, as Jesus said, ‘When you did this for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it for me’ (Matthew 25:40)” (Aparecida, 393).

The preferential option for the poor should permeate all of our structures and pastoral priorities.  It must be manifested in visible options and gestures, principally in the defense of life and of the rights of the most vulnerable and excluded and in the sustained accompaniment in their efforts to be agents of change and transformation in their situations.

The social doctrine of the Church (I prefer to say “the social message of the Church”) is capable of stirring up hope in the midst of the most difficult situations, because if there is no hope for the poor, there will not be hope for anybody, not even for those called rich.

“Only the proximity that allows friendship permits us to profoundly appreciate the value of today’s poor, their legitimate yearnings and their own style of living the faith.  The preferential option for the poor should lead us to friendship with the poor.

“Day after day, the poor make themselves agents of evangelization and integral human promotion: they educate their children in the faith, they live a constant solidarity between relatives and neighbors, and they constantly seek God and give life to the Church’s pilgrimage” (Aparecida, 398).

Of course, each parish community should have a catechetical team and a liturgical team.  But it would remain crippled without also having a team for parish charity.  And, at the diocesan level, the diocesan charity team promotes and supports the parish when they don’t have the capacity for full human development projects.

The charitable team must meet three objectives.  First, it must provide social assistance, which would help and accompany those who suffer from immediate lack of food, medicine, money for transportation, etc.  A second objective is the communication of these necessities to the greater Christian community and the denunciation of the situation of poverty and injustice and its causes.   The third objective, no less important, is to carry out human and social development projects which signal the Reign of God.

The preferential option for the poor, said Pope Benedict XVI in the opening address of the Conference of Aparecida, is implicit in faith in a Christ who God made poor for us, in order to enrich our lives with his poverty.  I hope that we have the same attitude as Christ and continue his path.

a bit of economics

 My desire to volunteer abroad has always been rooted in a strong belief in a preferential option for the poor. That can mean many things and can be explained in many ways, but for Catholics it comes from our most fundamental call to serve God. While he was alive, Jesus told his disciples very plainly that when they acted concretely with love for the poorest members of their community they were serving him. It all seems a bit abstract, which is the point. I continually fail to grasp this concept, except when I actually live it out. That’s when it becomes so clear.

 

I want to share a story with you with as many details as possible, not to try to stun anybody or make your feel guilty, but just to paint as good of picture as I can of what it’s like. Yesterday I went with two social workers who work for LENTCH, a program for children who are or have been working on the streets (selling stuff, singing or dancing, etc.), to visit some homes of the children. (Side note: I think this is going to be one of my regular activities in addition to the parish work). We paid four soles (Peruvian currency, pronounced SOUL-ace, more to come about that below) to travel up to Villa Leslie, a recently “developed” area of the city, with sand streets, no electricity yet, and limited water access. One of the homes we visited was that of a mother and probably five or six of her ten children, at least three of whom are grown women with children of their own, all living in the same structure. I say “structure” so as not to give you an image of a typical house in the U.S. The walls are made of a woven reed-like material, and two rooms had roofs of the same material. I only saw into one of the two rooms, which had an old, small twin bed with a thin, dirty mattress. The rest was a large open area, serving as the family room, play room, and chicken coop. The turkeys and chickens roam freely among the children, with the rabbits in a hutch against one wall. The mother tells us that the large turkey will bring 200 soles when she sells it. I remember just a few days ago when we were dismayed by the high price of turkey for Thanksgiving.

 

On the positive side, this family had been selected by LENTCH to receive a prefabricated wooden house, and we were there to deliver to news that it will be delivered next week. While the social workers were explaining this to the mother, one of the children came in from behind the house and told us that the neighbor girl (also part of our program) had been bit on the leg by a dog. When she finally came in we saw the gash, not huge but definitely cause to worry. Long story short, I ended up cleaning it, with a bit of water (generally not clean), soap, and a T-shirt rag. As I wiped the wound as rigorously as I had the heart to, Lourdes remained expressionless. I knelt there in the sand, trying to block her leg from the wind, wiping the blood, thinking there was no way I could get all the dirt out of her wound, hoping the dog didn’t have any diseases, wondering what was the likelihood that her mother would take her to the hospital, picturing the large bottle of peroxide and tube of Neosporin sitting unused in my own home, balancing the soap on my leg so as not to drop it in the sand as well. When we contemplate the crucifixion of Jesus, we wonder, what would I have done if I had been there? Surely I would have done something to help, we think. What a shame that I wasn’t there to wipe Jesus’ tears. I tell you, Jesus is crucified every moment of every day. That’s why we have a “preferential option for the poor,” but we only generalize with a title like that to make it more accessible. We really have a preferential option to wipe the blood from Lourdes’ leg.

 

So I didn’t begin this blog entry intending to go into all that… but sometimes it’s best to let flow whatever seems to be coming! Part of a preferential option for the poor is the attempt to walk in solidarity with communities living in poverty. We could talk about the philosophy of solidarity for hours, but I merely want to highlight part of it from a very practical point of view!

 

Most families here make small amounts of money each day, so most things can be bought in tiny quantities. We try to purchase our food daily in small quantities to practice this type of living as well. To give you an idea of money here, we (my community) came up with the following list. The Peruvian currency is called the Nuevo Sol. The exchange rate right now is 2.77 soles to one dollar, so one sol is about $0.36. Seems like very little, but (thank goodness) a little sol can go a long way!

 

Things you can buy for 1 nuevo sol

• 10 medium-sized tomatoes (1 kilo)
• ¼ kilo of oatmeal (about 4 cups)
• ¾ kilo of rice (about 5 cups)
• 1 kabob of anticuchos (beef heart, fire-grilled to order)
• 10 individually-wrapped Halls
• 9 pieces of bread (freshly baked twice daily)
• 5 eggs (gathered from the chickens on the roof)
• 8 mini bananas
• 1 order of French fries from the street vendors (cup of oil included, haha)
• 1 avocado
• 2 trips to a public restroom (if you want toilet paper)
• 1 one-way trip downtown in a colectivo (a car with a set route that picks up passengers all along the way)
• 1 one-way trip to the church in a moto taxi
• 2 oz. of raw fish for ceviche (Chimbote’s most famous dish, look it up)
• 1 hair clip
• 1 glass of freshly-squeezed fruit juice (mango, strawberry, pineapple, etc., take your pick)
• 3 pieces of poster-sized paper
• 4 picarones (a delicious fried snack with the texture of a funnel cake but smaller and made with squash and sweet potatoes)
• 2 roses
• 2 packs of chicken bouillon (2 cubes each)
• 2 rolls of toilet paper
• 20 mini lemons
• 1 hour of computer time in an internet café
• 1 ice cream cone (one scoop in a cake cone)
• 1 2-minute conversation via cell phone
• 5 small white candles
• 2 “besos de moza” (“young man’s kiss,” a chocolate filled with marshmallow cream)

Thanks for reading :)  Blessings to you all during the holidays!  I would love to hear from you!