CARITAS – Santa Rosa de Copán

CARITAS is the Catholic Church’s official international aid agency, with CARITAS offices in most countries of the world, as well as in many dioceses.

CARITAS of the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán has worked on a number of projects through the years. Currently there are projects in education through the radio and weekend classes, preparation for disasters/risk management in rural communities, training for democratic participation, and two small enterprises - a bakery and a meat preparation project. There have been some agricultural projects, but none currently due to lack of funding.

There has been some concern in the diocese that CARITAS was not working with the parishes and with the Social Ministry of the diocese. The social ministry of the diocese is part of the “triple ministry” approach which pervades the diocese. Each base community is supposed to have people committed to each of the three ministries: prophetic (religious education, etc.), liturgical (Mass, Celebrations of the Word, choirs, retreats, etc.), and social.

Each base community is represented in the church council in the village. The villages send representatives to the sector meetings which send representatives to the zone, which in turn sends representatives to the parish council. Each of the three ministries has a diocesan committee composed of one priest from each of the six deaneries and a layperson from each parish.

For the last few years, the diocesan social ministry has not been integrated with CARITAS. But this is changing.

Recently a new director of CARITAS was appointed, Father Efraín Romero, and the bishop appointed me as associate director. Father Efraín is also the new diocesan coordinator of social ministry. He is concerned with formation in Catholic Social Teaching as well as with projecting the work of CARITAS in the parishes for the integral development of the people. As he says, a key concern is feeding the people and a critical part of this is helping them produce what they need.

This new ministry will be quite a challenge – not only formulating proposals and overseeing them, but finding financial support for projects. I also look forward to finding ways to educate people in Catholic Social Thought. This diocese is one of the poorest parts of the country with immense needs, but also with great potential. And so this is one way for me to try to help those most in need.