Faith is not done for
18.08.2010
Pat McCarthy interviews Columban Fr Paul Prendergast while home from Peru.
Think of Peru and, alongside its rich heritage and spectacular scenery, it’s easy to conjure up a picture of political unrest, corruption, human rights abuses, Shining Path guerrillas and an authoritarian Catholic Church whose members are being lured away by evangelistic sects.
These may be the stuff of headlines, but a New Zealand Columban who has spent most of his priestly life serving the people of Peru sees a picture that is much more positive, both now and for the future.
Fr Paul Prendergast, originally from Akaroa near Christchurch, went to Peru in 1966. For the past 12 years he has been the sole priest at Yanaoca, a parish of 35,000 people not far from Cusco, the ancient capital of the Inca Empire.
High in the Andes of south-eastern Peru, the parish is nearly 4000 metres above sea level. ‘The people of the region have been Catholic since the Spanish conquered them in the 16th century, and most still consider themselves Catholic,’ Fr Paul said during a two-month holiday in New Zealand.
“The Spaniards set the Church up strongly,” he said. “They really taught the people what the faith was all about.
“In any town of any size you have a great big church and in those times Sunday was sacred to God and everyone had to come. They would spend most of the morning having catechism classes and at some stage they would have Mass and presumably something to eat and in the afternoon go home. That went on for a hundred years or more.”
The past century, however, saw a falling off in teaching about the faith, so belief tended to “dry up” and focus on externals - like processions with religious images and bands, and “special” Masses for every social occasion.
Now Fr Paul sees “a terrific amount of really Catholic life and Catholic devotion” in his parish.
“The actual cultural organisation of the people is conducive to Catholic life in a certain way because they all live in small communities. There might be 50 families or there might be up to 400 families who form a native community and they run their own organisation.
“They are the legal owner of the land and they portion it out. There is a fair bit of crookedness that goes into that part of it. At the same time, there is also a lot of helping people out because they all depend on each other.
“They have public works where everyone has to dig for the irrigation ditches and everyone has to help out when they are building a new meeting house or any of those sorts of things. This has the effect that people are good at looking after each other.
“There are lots of cases where parents die and people look after the children just as if they were their own. Usually it is the closer family, but in some cases even the neighbours will take
the kids in. Yes, there is a real sense of a strong community and a very Christian community.”
About 150 catechists operate in the villages throughout Yanaoca. “They are really the key people in getting the faith firmly going again,” Fr Paul said.
Vocations are coming forward too, he added – two priests ordained from his own parish last year and currently at least 10 seminarians and “dozens” of young women in convents.
Modernisation has occurred. There are roads where he once had to ride a horse for an hour.
Everyone has mobile phones. Remote schools without electric lights have motor-powered computers and a satellite dish. Children from “really poor” families are getting through university.
Fr Paul said the Church in Peru still has its share of problems: Many of the laity are poorly informed and the official Church has put little emphasis on the local language of Quechua. Efforts to get rid of sacramentalism in the 1960s and ’70s led to the strong social movement of liberation theology; now a strong conservative element in the Church means less attention is given to corruption and injustice.
Nevertheless, Fr Paul sees “a lot of hope for the Peruvian Church” and suggests: “Maybe in another couple of generations they will be sending priests over here to help out in New Zealand.”
“Everything makes me feel that the Church is fronting up to the problem of an uninformed or badly informed laity. They are definitely getting over that and getting real commitment from a lot of lay people to take part in all aspects of Church life, and that’s right through the country. “I think the faith is very much alive.
I fear a little bit that some New Zealand Catholics think faith is something dead – it’s done for. Maybe it seems that way in New Zealand, but if you look at the big picture it’s not. That should be a very hopeful thing for any New Zealanders who are getting a bit downhearted about things.”
On the other hand, he’d like New Zealand to pass on to Peru its traditional sense of justice and looking after the poor. Plucking an idea out of the air, he picked the New Zealand television programme Fair Go, which exposes consumer rip-offs. “If we could have that in Peru it would be marvellous,” he said.
As for himself, after spending 40 of his 74 years in Peru, Fr Paul sees himself as “just as Kiwi as ever.” But he has his own two-bedroom house in Yanaoca, so when he retires he intends to stay there “and I’ll still be able to help out with things.”
New Zealand journalist Pat McCarthy formerly edited NZ Catholic newspaper and now directs the pilgrimage website http://www.seetheholyland.net/
