A Missionary to the Peruvian Andes
The tall elderly man, leaning slightly on his cane, stands out among the people of the Peruvian Andes Mountain Range. Most Andean folks reach only to his shoulders and his white and ruddy skin, burned by the cold, contrasts with the coppery skin of the local residents. He is almost a legend in the area. Everybody in the parish of Santiago Apostol (St James the Apostle) knows Padre Pablo. They speak to him either in Quechua, the local indigenous language or in Spanish.
Yanaoca, where the parish is located, is 4,000 meters above sea level. It is a good two hour’s drive from Cusco, the ancient Inca capital and tourist capital of Peru. But Yanaoca is another world. It is a town of extremely poor peasants and small farmers. The scenery is very beautiful, yet desolate. Yet it is here where New Zealander, Columban Fr Paul Prendergast began his Andean mission 30 years ago.
Missionary experience
Fr Paul was sent in 1966 to Peru three years after being ordained. After Spanish language studies, he was assigned to the parish of St Matthew the Apostle in Lima, where he worked for 13 years.
“People were happy to be Catholic and wanted to know more about their faith. I realized that almost all of our parishioners were not from Lima, they were from the Andes. My parishioners used to invite me to visit their native village and once I went with them to a small town in Ayacucho. When people found out that I was a priest, they immediately asked me to say Mass. The news that a priest had arrived spread out very fast and people came from everywhere, far and wide asking for Mass, Sacraments and blessings. I thought to myself, ‘people in Lima need priests, but even more in the Andes.’ Some people had not seen a priest for more than ten years and their faith was sustained by their religious traditions. When I returned to Lima, I formed a missionary team with a group of 15 men and women and for nearly ten years we went every year for two or three weeks to different villages in Ayacucho. People were thirsty for God.”
Missionary territory
The experience of those short term missions convinced Fr Paul that the Andes Mountains were missionary territory. So after working 13 years in Lima and spending a short period back home in New Zealand, Fr Paul returned to Peru to work in the Andean mountains. Bishop Quinn of the Prelature of Sicuani, Cuzco, invited him to work in his diocese, where he has remained for the last 30 years.
Many of the churches in the 60 towns and villages that formed Fr Paul’s parish were in a desperate state of repair. In most places, local people had fabricated mud bricks for the church walls but never had enough money to put on the roof. Donations from Columban benefactors started to come in and each year three or four towns put on the roof of their chapels.
Violent years
The decades of the 1980s and 1990s were violent years in Peru. They were dominated by two large terrorist organizations, the Shining Path Guerrillas and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. It was a time of great suffering for the whole country but especially for the already oppressed people of the Andes. Fr Paul spent those years with his people although he often received death threats.
“The time of terrorism was terrible, horrible. Nobody could say anything. While travelling by bus, you dared not say anything because you did not know if the person by your side was a terrorist or not. Our people survived this time because they are quite strong. The farming work is very difficult in these regions and makes people stronger physically and spiritually too.”
Ecological terrorism
Today a new kind of terrorism has arisen.
“Today the large foreign companies are doing great damage to the area. It is a true ecological terrorism. After a few years of mining work in the area, nothing grows. We have gold and copper mines and the mining companies that have worked here, have left the river dirty, the land itself is not clean, it is poisonous, and the children get sick.”
Some improvements in Yanaoca
Nevertheless there have been some improvements in the last 20 years. There are now paved roads for all the towns and districts of the parish. Goods are no longer carried on horseback but on trucks. A young Columban priest from Korea, Fr Young-In Kim is now the parish priest and following in Fr Paul’s footprints, serves the people with love and generosity. Nevertheless young people are still leaving the area after finishing high school, not wanting to be farmers and subsist on small pieces of land.
Speaking of the future, Fr Paul says, “The church in this area will survive due to the laity. There will be no priests or religious who can take care of many parishes. The church needs to be more open to the laity who want to do something. There are even priests who do not want a layperson to speak in the church or a woman to get near the altar, not even for a reading during Mass. The Church has to change drastically. Our bishop will continue to insist on preparing more lay people for leadership. The church will continue to exist and will thrive into the future wherever the laity is allowed to work.”
Fr Paul has worked hard over the years preparing the people for this kind of future.
Today every village in the parish has a lay person, male or female, who baptizes, opens the church or chapel on Sundays, and presides over the Sunday service, which includes a reflection on the Mass readings of the day. Each month these community leaders and catechists meet in Yanaoca for a weekend to share about their work and continue an ongoing formation.
Maria Johnson was the Director for Hispanic Ministry for the Columbans in the US.
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