Come at once, Father!
01.01.2008
Fr Hank Beninati, a Maryknoller* from Connecticut USA is still on mission in Yangji, the prefecture of Jilian, North eastern China. He has spent 13 years there as teacher in a number of schools and as pastor to a number of Catholic communities in outlying villages. His interest in China started back in the days when he was stationed in the port city of Pusan in South Korea.
"I was in charge of a Leper Project at the time and living in a leper village.
I was also a Chaplain for Vietnamese refugees. I had just come out of a parish, our last parish there and I had gone to Vietnam to see why they were running away.
They were coming up in boat loads and the coast guard was picking them up and taking them to Pusan. They were what was referred to at the time as "Boat People."
While I was there I got a fax from my boss and he said, "They need a teacher up in Yangji. Come." I said, "How about the end of the month"? "No, no," he said, "You have to come up right now, our credibility is on the line. Come up here."
I came up here because they needed an English teacher. It was a "a good in" for priests and for the Church. We had been in the Pyeongyang area, Fushun and Manchuria in the 20s and 30s and 40s and this was the first time back since then. So this was good news that Maryknoll was getting back into China.
The schools needed teachers at the time, especially the Teachers College, and really I should have gone into Language studies, but I stayed teaching. I was 64 at the time. I can get along with Korean but I never learnt Chinese. I am 80-years-old and have been teaching every year, right up to this year. So there is lots of good influence on the young people."
Fr Beninati has taught in Yanbian University, at the Teachers College in Yangji and at the Salesian High School in Yangji. He also taught at the Nursing School, the Nursing College for some time. "The reason for the change around is the Chinese Government doesn't want you teaching over three or four years in one place. They get nervous when you get to know people because of your influence, they prefer you to keep moving. So they kept giving me Visas one year at a time, which is fine. I think this is probably my last year."
Over the years Fr Beninati has met lots of refugees coming over from North Korea. He said, "The Church is their first stop. Often on the street when they see the foreigner they will ask for help. Some of the Catholics also have relatives in North Korea, so they come over to visit here. I get in contact with them that way as well."
An outlying village close to his heart is Palto outstation about two hours from Yangji City. He has ministered to the people there for the last 10 years. It's also the place where his confrere Fr John Meehan is laid to rest, a short distance from the Church, on a hill overlooking the village. The day we visited, the place was bathed in sunshine and the villagers were busy in the fields collecting the remaining harvest, ahead of the cold Manchurian winds. As we arrived an old lady waved to us from her thatched house below the Church. She had recognised her friend and already was on her way, though she was stooped and moving with the aid of a stick.
Her name was Anna, an 80-year-old Catholic, a Chinese Korean from a three generation Catholic family. Anna was delighted to see her old friend again and at the end of our visit her parting words were, "Won't you come and say Mass for us?"
Fr Hank himself in his 80th year promised her he would and Anna kept waving goodbye.
*Maryknoll or the Foreign Mission Society of America has had an exclusive emphasis on ministry and missionary work overseas. It was founded in 1911 by Fr James Walsh and Fr Thomas Price.
Fr Malachy Smyth is the former editor of the Columban Magazine in Korea.
