The beginnings

Uruguay. The name means river of birds and it is one that is incredibly fitting. I have never been in a country with so many and of such varied types. In y short time here I have already come to know a little bit more about birds – especially in my church.

I have been down here for some weeks now and am slowly adapting to a very different life. I suppose I should have been writing all along what my impressions were, but time has been a sorely missing luxury.

So many of you have asked me to write at least something, that I finally decided to jot down a few thoughts or impressions to be able to share with you a little of my experiences here. If I ever get around to making this into a nice webpage, is an entirely different question.

A week ago I was installed in my parish, the shrine of the patroness of the diocese, St. Therese of Lisieux in Chamizo, Uruguay. Since then, I have been trying to slowly figure my way around being a pastor in a parish that has been sorely neglected for a very long time. For almost the past twenty years it has not had a pastor of its own, with the priests doing double duty serving it from another town 25 miles away.

The church has suffered much from this arrangement both spiritually and materially. While those people who remain are very faithful and open, a significant part of the populous has drifted away. The only youth who even think of approaching the church are those who are required to come because they are in catechism classes preparing for first communion. The sad thing is that there is a parochial school not thirty feet from the church itself which has more students than the public school there, and yet there is no contact or echo in the students. In the past years the relationship has been extremely strained and so the priests have had no access or contact to the students. It is one of my first priorities to change that!

Another indicator of things is the number of weddings. The previous pastor told me that in the last two years there has been one. Only one in two years! Most people simply don’t bother any more with marriage here. Perhaps they go through a civil ceremony, but most don’t even bother with that.

At the material level, the church is a disaster, even if it is of elegant architecture. The roof has fallen into disrepair and as a result, the entire interior of the church is destroyed. When it rains, the water drips from the ceiling forming large puddles on the now buckling tile floor and taking with it ever more of the plaster and paint from the ceiling and molding. Speaking of mold… the walls in the back of the church are quite literally green and slimy with it. That then brings me back where I started, birds. Due to neglect over the years, there are currently quite a few windows that are broken and have been left so. As a result, it has become a popular hangout for the local birds. The floors and pews are covered with droppings, feathers, and filth.

I don’t think that I can describe the how shocking and appalling it was for me to see the condition of that church. I won’t say that I was surprised, but it truly pains me to think that this is the house of God. It is also saddening that this is the state of the diocesan shrine. St. Therese was a humble Carmelite, but still…

In saying these things, I would like to briefly mention that I do not in any way fault the priests before me, and certainly not the bishop. The bishop is a saintly man who does all he can with the extremely limited resources that he has. He is 74 now and still fights the good fight in the midst of very few vocations and very little money. As for the priests, they too had almost no resources at their disposal and were principally concerned with the parish in the other town, with this small village being treated ever more as a mission parish.

Just to give a small indication of what I mean, the average collection here on a weekend is about five dollars. After having taken in quite a bit of money for the feast of St. Therese, the total wherewithal of the parish currently sits on my desk in an old envelope containing only a couple hundred dollars. No finance committee, no bank account, just an old battered envelope. Also, in defense of the parishioners, it has to be said that they don’t earn much themselves and many just barely scratch by. A good month’s wage is around $350, but many of the field hands make only about $50 a month. Add to that the fact that they have very little industry here, with most things being imported, and you soon have prices that are virtually unbearable for anything other than food.

Over the past two weeks I have been trying to take stock of parish life as well. Until now there has been only one Mass a week on Saturday evening. Also, once a month the pastor would hold a mass somewhere else in the confines of the parish. Allow me to explain. This region of Uruguay is the top producer of milk for the entire country. As such, there is a awful lot of beautiful gently rolling range land for the cows, but not too much else. As such, you can often travel for quite a ways from one village to the next with nothing in between. I currently live in the bishop's residence in Florida and in the thirty minute drive between here and my parish, there is absolutely nothing else. Consequently also the confines of my parish are quite large. I have not yet found out exactly how many square miles, but I know I can drive for miles in any direction and not leave it.

As a result, there are some other villages and a few larger haciendas in the parish where there are people who have virtually no access to a church. I have four catechists who work in the parish and two of them are for these outlying areas. They try as best they can to prepare the children for first communion and confirmation, but it seems almost senseless to me at this point. Don’t mistake me, I am ecstatic that they do it and don’t question the need, but unfortunately I have been told they do not even have chapels in these locations and almost never have mass. So we are preparing the children for their first communion, but how often will there be another?

I can’t say that I really know the extent of the situation in these outlying places because I have yet to visit. I am at present hampered significantly in my pastoral work by one simple reality: I have no car and it is much too far to walk! For now I have to borrow a car when possible and so that has not yet afforded me the possibility to visit these other places. When I get a chance to see them, perhaps I can find a better solution and begin adding masses for them. As it is, I plan to begin at least by adding a Sunday Mass and then a few weekday Masses in Chamizo itself. I have no idea what kind of response I will have since it has been so long since they had other Masses.

That is how things stand for now. As time goes on I will add more to give a better picture of life down here. I can only ask that you all keep me and my work here in your prayers.

God bless,

Fr. Francesco