Giving back, paying it forward and evangelizing are reasons Catholics here give for partnering with a diocese in Colombia.
One project they are being asked to support is the creation of a new parish named Our Lady of Medjugorje.
Good Shepherd Parish in Linwood and St. Augustine Parish in Millville are slated to begin a three-year commitment to the Apostolic Vicariate of Mitú, which is like a diocese, on Sept. 1.
The bishop of Mitú – Bishop Medardo de Jesus Henao del Rio – is visiting here through May 10. He preached at Good Shepherd last weekend and is to preach at St. Augustine’s this weekend.
He had dinner with parishioners at St. Augustine’s Tuesday, showing a video made for the occasion, which he was to show at a dinner at Good Shepherd yesterday.
The two parishes share a pastor, Father Lawrence J. Esposito, and an associate pastor originally from Colombia, Father Victor Sierra.
Father Esposito said he met Bishop Medardo when the bishop came here last December for Father Juan-Sebastian Sanchez’ ordination at St. Paul Cathedral and for his first Mass at Good Shepherd.
Father Sanchez, now associate pastor of St. John Parish in Worcester, said he met Bishop Medardo in Colombia around 2009 through the Xaverian Missionaries of Yarumal, the Society of Apostolic Life to which the bishop belongs. He was a novice and then Father Medardo was master of novices. They went on missions together. Later, when he was in seminary in Medellín, Father Medardo was a mentor for seminarians.
After Father Sanchez came to the Worcester Diocese to discern a priestly vocation here, he had seminarian assignments at Good Shepherd and St. Augustine’s.
Father Esposito said that in January he went to Colombia with Father Sanchez, who went home to celebrate his first Mass there. Father Esposito got to talk with Bishop Medardo, who was vacationing in Medellín.
“He had been telling me about the diocese and I asked him, ‘How can we help?” Father Esposito said. “He said, ‘I would like you to come … see the diocese.’
“In all of that, this idea of a partnership germinated in my head,” Father Esposito said. “The parish councils (at Good Shepherd and St. Augustine) became very enthusiastic about developing some kind of project with Mitú.”
Asked why he suggested this, Father Esposito spoke of needs in Mitú, including how people walk hours to Mass, arriving exhausted, and are given food and places to bathe by the parish.
He figures his parishioners can help, perhaps with a monthly collection (in part to pay for Bible translators and education of seminarians, deacons and catechists), and by sending items such as kitchen and liturgical supplies and solar radios to broadcast Masses. He also said people can go there to help.
The response in his parishes has been great, and other communities have expressed interest in contributing, he said.
When things are convenient here, people don’t realize how others struggle, said Paul Joanis, of Good Shepherd. He said he thinks the partnership shows the global nature of the Church and people’s willingness to reach out when others are in need.
People try to help those in their own area, but “this is a real need,” said Priscilla Laliberte, of St. Augustine’s.
“I think Father Larry has such great ideas” about reaching beyond the parish, said her husband, Eugene.
“Jesus came for everyone,” added his wife.
“People don’t generally think of Catholics as being the biggest evangelizers,” said Christine Allard, another St. Augustine’s parishioner. “But this is a perfect example of reaching out across the world to spread the Word of God.”
In an impromptu speech at St. Augustine’s Tuesday, parishioner Marcia Lanctot said Bishop Medardo will make more Catholics in his diocese.
“Then they’re going to come to the mission fields in America and we’ll have more priests,” she reasoned. “Pay it forward. We love our priests from Colombia.” And, she added, they love their priests from here too.
“We have been blessed by the country of Colombia with the number of young men that have come here to be priests, and it’s now our turn to send our blessings back,” said Donna Wilson, a Good Shepherd parish council member.
“That was one of the first things people said when I introduced this,” Father Esposito said. The Worcester Diocese, not just his parishes, has been blessed with seminarians who are ordained priests to serve here.
Asked how the people of Mitú might bless people here, Father Esposito said: “By allowing us to help. If we give generously from the heart, we get back a hundred fold.”
Bishop Medardo said someone at St. Augustine’s commented, after learning about needs in Mitú, “This made me think I complain too much.”
The diocese of Mitú is 20,908 square miles in the Amazon region of Colombia. It has 16 priests (10 diocesan priests and six missionaries), nine parishes, three quasi-parishes and 26 ethnic communities, Bishop Medardo said.
He expressed hope that Good Shepherd and St. Augustine’s can help him create a new parish for about 4,000 people in the Buenos Aires area of his diocese. The parish is to be named Our Lady of Medjugorje because, after learning of the reported apparitions of the Blessed Mother in that part of Europe, he asked her intercession for this endeavor.
Bishop Medardo said he plans to send a new priest to start the parish and have the Church promote health care, education and catechesis, using Catholic social teaching to help people learn about and speak up for their rights.
He illustrated a need with a story. In 2000, as a priest, he went to an area of Buenos Aires that took 23 hours to reach by boat. Casimiro, an old man who’d been baptized and made his first Communion before moving there as a youth, said he’d been praying for years to receive the sacraments. Then Father Medardo heard his confession – one of the best ever – and promised him Communion the following day.
But Casimiro was too sick to attend the Mass the next day, so Father Medardo went to him, anointed him and gave him the Eucharist.
“Now Casimiro can die,” said the old man – and did so then and there.
Father Esposito said he and Father Sanchez are to visit Mitú the first week of June.
“I think that these two little parishes in Massachusetts have decided to step out in faith,” and Bishop McManus is supportive, he said.
He said the sexual abuse crisis and concerns about buildings and property have affected the Catholic Church in the United States.
“We’ve been turned in on ourselves,” he said. “We need to understand that the mission of the Church has not changed. … Pope Paul VI was very clear about that: evangelization is the essential mission of the Church. It is why she exists.”