November a full month

November is almost over and I’ve only written two posts – not for lack of activity. But I have also been doing a lot of writing, in Spanish.

For the past three years, I’ve worked with three young priests to prepare materials for the base communities. The previous years we stuck to the Sunday readings but this year we wrote on themes for several months – as well as general themes on Advent, Christmas-time, Lent, and Easter. This threw me off a bit and so I kept procrastinating and ended up spending three days in the middle of the month writing themes for seventeen weeks.

I'm also preparing a series of presentation. A few weeks ago I received a request from CONFEREH, the Honduras Conference of Men and Women Religious, to do a week for their four-week study program on the theme of the "Social Reality and its influence on the stages of beginning formation.” I hesitated but spoke with two of the Dubuque Franciscan sisters here in Honduras. So I decided to say yes. Needless to say, this has meant a lot of work. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thought, including re-reading Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination. It’s next week, December 2 to 5. So, lots of studying, writing, and praying. 

The month has also been full of meetings. I met with the village coordinators of Social Ministry as well as the catechists of the parish. I also was at the meeting of the missionaries our parish sent to another parish last month. I really appreciate the chance to be with all these people who are giving so much of their time and energy to the parish.

But there were evaluation and planning meetings – on the deanery, diocesan, and parish levels. I sometimes feel as if I’m getting too old for these meetings. All I want to do is to get out and be with the people. But… 

Yet, there were great moments at the diocesan meeting, seeing a young priest I know who is a good friend (and speaks English.) Also, at the diocesan meeting, Sister Nancy Meyerhofer, one of the Dubuque Franciscans here in Honduras, gave a presentation on pardon and reconciliation. Her presentation was great – what else can we expect from sisters like her. It was also very much needed. She was invited, in part because the pastoral theme at the national level is “A reconciled community builds a country in truth and justice.” I hope that this theme will be part of the programming of the diocese. I will try to involve our parish social ministry in some training on violence and the transformation of conflicts.

I also heard that our diocese will be going ahead to respond to the abuse crisis in the church and the country. I hope so, since it’s so desperately needed – especially in the light of violence and rampant domestic violence and abuse in the Honduran society. 

With all these other commitments I have not gotten out to visit the sick in the communities as much as I should.

Yet I continue my Sunday commitments – usually going to a village in the morning for a Celebration of the Word with Communion. I try to get to places where the people don’t normally have communion on Sundays. I also go to one of the Masses that Padre German has – at least four each Sunday. I almost always preach – so that he can rest a bit. This month I’ve baptized children twice, in San Agustín and Camalote, during a Sunday Mass. This Saturday I have a baptism outside of Mass (since Padre German is visiting family in Guatemala for about ten days.

There have been two other events that I’ll write about later this week – the opening of the process for the beatification of a Delegate of the Word and catechist in our diocese and the Christ the King celebration.

I also should write something about the continuing saga of drug-trafficking as well as the continuing destruction of a cemetery by a mining company. (Maybe next week.)

The weather is becoming cooler and there's more rain. It's also coffee harvest time and I see a lot of people going out to the harvest. More later.

God is good.

To prove it, here are a few photos from our world.

Praying to the true God in face of the idol of gold

The community of Azacualpa in the municipality of La Unión, Copán, is in the middle of a serious controversy. The mining company wants to move the cemetery because there is a vein of gold under it. Some have agreed and been paid by the mining company to allow the removal of the bodies, but some have continued resisting. For now, the mining company is prevented by a judicial action from continuing the removal of remains from the cemetery

But the situation is critical. In early September the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán released a strong statement against the situation of Azacualpa and the continuing mining in the diocese, especially the mining which has caused such devastation to the area – deforestation, destruction and contamination of water sources. To make visible the support of the diocese for the people, the Santa Rosa de Copán bishop, Monseñor Darwin Andino, went to preside at a Mass in Azacualpa on Monday, October 29.

GETTING TO AZACUALPA

When we met the bishop and the other priests in Cucyagua, we heard that mining supporters were blocking the road. When we reached the new town of San Andrés Las Minas, the parish priest of the area spoke with the police and they escorted us up to Azacualpa.

As we passed the curve up to the town, we saw a grand crowd of supporters screaming at us, but we passed through safely. 

But just past the turn, we stopped, seeing a large group of people who were hidden in the forest. They came out and filled the bed of one of the pickups. They had hidden from the crowd of angry supporters but wanted to come with us to Mass.

THE MASS

The Mass was celebrated beside the church. There were probably about 150 or more people there and we – the bishop, eleven priests, and a deacon (me) – accompanied them.

Providentially, the first reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (4:32-5:8) spoke strongly of greed.

“no immoral or impure or greedy person, that is, an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.”

THE BISHOP'S HOMILY

Monseñor Darwin Andino, the bishop of Santa Rosa de Copán, spoke strongly.

He asked the people who was here first, the community or the mining company. The community, of course, responded the people. He then spoke of the Machiavellian efforts to divide the people in order to conquer them.

He emphasized that the church is not against development, but for integral development, that develops the whole person and the whole community.

His strongest words were framed in terms of the reading from Paul to the Ephesians. Henoted the motive of avarice, which is, in Paul’s word, idolatry. The mining companies want to remove the bodies from the cemetery in order to extract the gold, but, as the bishop said,

“More valuable [than the gold under the cemetery] is what is above – the people buried there. For greed and avarice, for love of money, it doesn’t bother us [the mining company]to destroy a mountain and to damage water.
For they only think of their money – money which is dirty (cochino), damned (maldito), and stained with blood (manchado de sangre)".

He condemned the money of the mining companies and also mentioned the killing of environmentalists for defending the environment.

He also urged them to continue their struggle and to realize the presence of the church with them.

“Be courageous. I invite you to not bend your knees, be strong.”

A part of the homily can be found here on You Tube.

THE PROCESSION

After Mass, the people walked in procession to the cemetery, led by a cross carried by three young men. 

The bishop and the priests accompanied them in their vestments. The people sang and at one point began to pray the rosary.

As we approached the road up to the cemetery we saw a small crowd of supporters of the mining company. Thanks to the presence of the police we were able to pass by, with no violence. But as we prayed and sang, the mining company supporters screamed at us. There was not a confrontation but a parting of the seas of anger with prayers and hymns.

In the cemetery

When we arrived at the cemetery, we passed through an empty space where a tomb had been and went to a spot in the middle of the cemetery.

I looked around at some of the above ground tombs – some still contained the coffins of the dead, but others had obviously been taken away.

We stood around and finished the rosary while young men prepared a hole for the cross. 

I noticed at least one older man grieving.

At one point I noticed that the bishop was holding what were bones of the dead. They had been found scattered at the back of some graves. Later someone picked up another bone, just in front of me.

The bishop then noted that Catholics respect the bodies of the dead. We hope for the resurrection and so we need to respect their remains. And so he buried the bones beside where the cross would be erected.

We prayed as the cross was erected and waited, praying and singing, as the young men filled in the hole. I was moved and went to help move the dirt, praying in penance for all that the nations of North America had done to bringing such pain and injustice on the poor here in Honduras. The mine is run by a Canadian corporation, but Honduras has suffered many decades of control and exploitation by US governments and corporations.

After the cross was erected, the bishop offered a space for the people to speak. One articulate man recalled the prayer of Agur, a passage from Proverbs 30: 7-9:

Two things I ask of you… Put falsehood and lying far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; provide me only with the food I need; lest, being full, I deny you, saying, “Who is the Lord?” or, being in want, I steal, and profane the name of my God.

Looking down on the devastation

After praying in the cemetery, we were led to a place where we could look down on the mining operations. What tremendous use of resources to take the gold out of the earth.

As we were walking back, a young twenty-five-year old man told me how he had worked in the mine for a time but began to feel very uncomfortable with that kind of work. He quit his job, despite having a wife and two kids. What an example of courage and of conscience. These small acts of a man are signs of the power that is in each person, the power of that small voice of God we call conscience.

I think he is not alone. As I looked around at Mass and in the cemetery, there were a few spies. But there were even more young men and women present, praying and singing and participating in what must be risky for them. I admire their simple, yet profound, courage.

The struggle will surely continue, but it was good to be present where the church offered a sign of accompanying the people – not in a partisan political way, but as fellow human beings seeking dignity, justice, and respect for all.

I was glad to be there and I pray for these people and their community, in the midst of trials and sufferings.

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More photos can be found in this album on Flickr.