COLOMBIA - PANAMA
In 1965, we opened a middle school. The idea was to build three pavilions, but in fact only one was built and it was well equipped. At first there were just 22 students, mostly those who were unable to make it in the better known schools in the city; these had 60 children in each class, which meant that little attention could be paid to the individual. In our smaller classes each pupil could be looked after almost individually. As a result of this our school became very well known within a year. Enrollment increased and quality improved. The only problem was the lack of priests to teach religion and to do the administrative work. Our younger confreres were not attracted to such work at all but wanted to do only pastoral work. Thus it was that we had to give up this school and used the money to finance new ventures in pastoral work.
In 1972 we accepted responsibility for extensive pastoral work in genuine mission country, the Atrato River area and its tributaries. It comprised about 40 villages in the province of Antioquia. There are no roads whatever; all journeys have to be made by river often at the risk of one's life. This is said to be the wettest and rainiest area in all of South America and it is hot, the temperature varying between 26 degrees and 36 degrees Celsius. Mosquitoes abound and with them malaria; there are snakes and bugs of all kinds. These are all one needs to ensure a sickly life! The area entrusted to us covers 3,000 sq.kms inhabited by some 12,000 people, most of whom are black, descendants of the slaves who were imported and sold at the northern harbor town of Cartagena. Some Indians are also to be found up in the hilly areas where the rivers and streams have their source.
All the people, both blacks and Indians, had been baptized. Some of them are polygamous. Their christianity consists in the cult of the dead, in venerating pictures and in using copious amounts of holy water - even for bathing the baby - as a defence against illness. Only about 5% of them observe Sunday for what it is. So the job in hand is to try to deepen their Christianiy which is expressed almost entirely in externals. It was decided to concentrate on just a few villages for a start and to give them a thorough formation: kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, medical attention, regular Sunday Mass, sermon and catechism - not only for the youngsters but for the grownups as well. The idea is to bring a few families to a full appreciation and practice of christianity, and then to form larger communities which in turn will influence others. This is real mission country despite all the entries in the baptismal register.
To counterbalance this difficult mission, we were given a parish in the country's capital, Bogota, in 1976. It is a city of almost six million inhabitants. Our parish is in a new suburban area built up over the past three to six years; there are 60,000 people in it of whom 30,000 live in an area measuring scarcely more than a square kilometer. One styreet houses 1,700 policemen and their families; office workers live in another while a further one is the home of well-off wage earners. Laborers bordering on poverty are in a fourth. All of them have come into Bogota from elsewhere looking for work and a better standard of living. It is hard to form any kind of parish community out of such a heterogeneous lot of people who don not even know one another. It has proven somewhat easier to build community among the young people.
During the 18 years we have been working in Colombia, applicants for the priesthood have been few and far between: at times there were one to three novices. Only a few of these reached first profession, and only one finally became a priest in the Society. But we have kept on trying. Two fratres were studying in Medellin at the beginning of 1980, and nine young men were starting their novitiate at Bogota. What is most lacking, writes the provincial, is a trained and experienced novice master; there are enough vocations.
In 1979, it was decided to accept only those postulants for the brotherhood who had finished their secondary schooling. These do their novitiate together with the clerical novices, and when they have taken their first vows, they go on to full academic studies in order to eliminate what is called class distinction between fathers and brothers and to create a new image of the brotherhood.
Today, the province totals 20 priests, 8 scholastics and 1 novice.
