Peru Aftershocks

The following is the first of two installments recounting my most recent visit to the site of our former missions in Peru:

Last month, I had the opportunity to make a short visit to Peru. It has been two years since I have been there, and shortly after my previous visit, one of the dioceses where we had been working for four decades, the Diocese of Ica, experienced a massive earthquake that involved much of its territory.

The parish centers at Nasca and Marcona, which had been under the care of the Diocese of Jefferson City, are in the southern part of the Diocese of Ica, about six or seven hours by car from the capital city of Lima. The city of Ica seems to be pretty centrally located in the midst of the territory of its diocese, and it was not far from there, in the coastal city of Pisco, that the earthquake hit. Our last visit had been in January 2007, and the earthquake hit on the afternoon of Aug. 15, 2007, the Solemnity of the Assumption. At that very hour, Mass was going on in the parish church of San Clemente in Pisco. The Church building collapsed on a full congregation of faithful attending Mass, and most of the people in that Church lost their lives.

While the earthquake centered near Pisco, it was so large and devastating that it was felt over a large area including Nasca, and even the city of Lima. Shortly after the earthquake, we responded with help to the victims of the earthquake. The aftermath of this tragedy would be a backdrop for this year’s visit.

Since we turned over the parishes in Peru back to their dioceses, we have tried to be of assistance in this time of transition. We are now at a point where we need to figure out just how we can continue to support the work of the Gospel in Peru. It has been an important part of the history of our diocese, and I believe we can still maintain some type of special relationship with this portion of the Church. Therefore, that situation was also part of the backdrop for this year’s visit.

Our Mission Office recently received a generous bequest that could be used, among other things, to assist seminarians to visit the Peruvian missions. So I used the opportunity of this visit to offer the Peru mission experience to our two seminarians in their third year of theology at Kenrick Seminary, Francis Doyle and Dylan Schrader. Both of them are scheduled to be ordained deacons on May 30 of this year, and they accompanied Monsignor Raphael Keyes and me on this visit. The experience, I hope, will assist them in communicating with their parishioners about the importance of this work and will help a new generation of leadership in our diocese to become familiar with the important place this mission has played in the ongoing work of our local Church.

On the day of our arrival in Lima we began our work. We were able to meet with Bishop Guido Breña, who recently retired as bishop of Ica. He now lives in Lima, and the four of us had dinner with him and learned of all that had been happening (or not happening) in the aftermath of the earthquake.

A tremendous number of houses collapsed in the earthquake, and it is estimated that only some 10 percent of these have been rebuilt. More than 60 parish churches, including the Cathedral of Ica, were completely destroyed. Unfortunately, most of the Pacific Coast of the Americas is very active seismically, and that condition, along with the desperate poverty, has visited these nightmare scenarios on many occasions in Peru.

On our second day in Peru, we were able to let Francis and Dylan experience some of the very basic work that is necessary in the Peruvian environment. Sister Millie McNamara, a Mercy Sister from Ireland, conducts a clinic for the poorest of the poor in Lima. Over time, folks have been simply taking over large portions of the city garbage dump after they are filled with trash. Subsequently, these squatters proceed to build their houses over the reclaimed dump. Out of desperate necessity have they created this neighborhood served by Sr. Millie’s clinic. The neighborhood shares the name Villa Maria with some nicer areas blocks away, but is also commonly referred to as El Montone, for the artificial “mountain” that is still growing there.

We also visited an outreach clinic for people suffering from HIV/AIDS. That clinic has been organized by Columban Father Cahal Gallaher from Ireland, and tries to give a sense of order and hope to people who are very marginalized in Peruvian society.

The next day, we headed south on the Pan-American Highway to visit our former parishes of Nasca and Marcona. The first town in the Diocese of Ica that you encounter on the trip south is called Chincha Alta. Over the years, it has become the tradition for our visits to Nasca that we stop for lunch in Chincha at a little hotel that was a favorite of my predecessor, the late Bishop Michael F. McAuliffe, in his many visits to Peru. Imagine our shock when we pulled into the parking lot for this hotel and found that it had been completely destroyed in the earthquake! From that point on, the route of the highway through towns was lined with buildings in various stages of restoration and piles of bricks and tiles and other construction materials lining the road.

After finding a new place for lunch, we continued into Ica to visit the new bishop, Most Reverend Hector Vera. We found out that Bishop Vera was attending meetings in Lima, but we had a very good conversation with the vicar general and then visited one of the local parish churches, San Juan Bautista, to see the damage from the earthquake.

This church dates from the Colonial period. The whole roof has collapsed. The diocese wants to clear the site and begin construction on a new and stronger building. The civil authorities want the diocese to reconstruct it as it was -- which would leave it open to future earthquake problems. The people, in the meantime, worship on the square outside.

We then visited with two Sisters of Mercy serving the parish of St. Martin De Porres in Ica and saw their efforts assisting families to rebuild their houses devastated by the earthquake. I was reminded of our own efforts that were going on during my first visit to Nasca after the earthquake that occurred there in 1996. In both cases, they are able to replace adobe houses with buildings of concrete block reinforced with rebar.