By Father Bill Hoffman

(Father Hoffman is a priest of the Archdiocesan of Atlanta currently doing missionary work in Peru.)

PERU—First of all, I’d like to say something about the St. James Society which is a society established in 1959 by Cardinal Cushing in Boston. It is made up of diocesan priests, from wherever they come, who would like to volunteer for a certain length of time in Latin America, particularly in the three countries of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. These priests still remain priests of their dioceses and after the period of time they are free to return if they wish or to enlist for a little bit more time. So, we always remain priests of our diocese and I guess it’s for this reason that I particularly like to point out, in the GEORGIA BULLETIN, the fact that I am a member of the presbyterate of the Archdiocese of Atlanta and am simply one who is being loaned, albeit I am the one who chose to do so; loaned to the Church in Latin American for five years.

On the way down here, three of us stopped in Ecuador first to visit the three or four parishes we have in a little town at the mouth of the river just above the Peruvian border. The town is known for its Panama hats which are principally made there and exported. After visiting there we then went to Bolivia where we visited in Santa Cruz, almost in the middle of the country, the three or four parishes that we have there. Then it was on to another town in the mountains, somewhat to the East, where we have several other parishes. Our next stop was La Paz where we have one parish. We managed to visit many of these places outside of Peru before we even came to the language school, which began in early July.

Right now, I’m about halfway through the course. Interestingly, we have students here, some living at the school, some elsewhere. There are about 35 students and they came from the United States, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Holland and Switzerland. These folks, coming from all the countries, break down something like this: we have a dozen priests, about the same number of nuns, four nurses, one doctor, two Protestant ministers, plus a man who has finished his seminary training and has yet to be ordained from the Diocese of Utrecht. He will be working a couple of years in Chile before he’s ordained.

These students will disperse into the valley countries – Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Chile. It’s really interesting. The school itself is in a suburb of Lima, right on the Pacific ocean. From here, it’s a ten-minute walk to the beach down below us. The city is somewhat on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Right now it’s not very pleasant – we have winter here now and although it’s a very mild winter it is continually cloudy and damp. I don’t find it very cold but the people who’ve been here for a while are experiencing some cool weather. A few days there we did have sunshine and a few of us went down to the beach to swim and found it quite nice.

Since I’ve been here I’ve visited our two parishes in Lima and I’ve also visited the parishes that we have in what the Peruvians call a department. We would call it a state. I have visited our three parishes in the department in several different towns. I haven’t yet visited parishes we have in a city about half the way up the coast from Lima, nor another department located way in the northern part of Peru.

I don’t know yet where I’ll be assigned. My inclination is to go to the mountains; perhaps I will go there. That will be determined shortly. Since I’ve been here I’ve been going around to pray with different groups in prayer meetings and I’ve found them very encouraging. I’ve been to two that have been in schools operated by sisters from Philadelphia; one of these was in English and the other in Spanish.

I’ve also been to a prayer meeting that was at the home of a Pentecostal minister, which was in English. Another one was in a Church meeting hall of a sort of upper middle class neighborhood. That was in Spanish and I found it quite good. I quite enjoyed it. In fact, I continue going there.

This Protestant minister, who is not a student in the language school, is Hobart Vann from California. He thought that God was calling him to serve in Peru so he brought his whole family down here not knowing what, if anything, he will be able to do. He was supported by donations from friends back in California. So, he comes here – he and his wife go through the language school and now they find themselves principally involved in a ministry which rarely uses Spanish. They speak English most of the time because they find what they are doing mostly is working with priests and nuns in Peru with the charismatic renewal here. It’s an interesting twist – a Pentecostal preacher feeling the call to come to Peru to work in Spanish and he finds he’s working in English with Catholic priests and nuns. Very, very beautiful people.

Another Protestant here is a girl from Switzerland who will be working with the Swiss mission in the jungle. They conduct a Bible school there in the jungle in eastern Peru and also a Bible school in the mountains of Peru. She will be working with university studies, trying to learn a language of one of those tribes in Peru; learn the language of the tribe, get it written, develop grammars for it so people can learn the language. Also, so that books can be published in their own language teaching them such things as health, the Spanish language and other things. These are really primitive people. They don’t even know how to write these languages; there is no written form of the language. The Swiss student will be working in these areas, learning the language and eventually working on a New Testament and then later on with her Bible in these languages out in the jungle of Peru.

The other Protestant student here in the language school is a young Southern Baptist minister from Signal Mountain, Tenn. He served in a little parish there before he felt God was calling him to serve some Baptist communities here in Peru. He will be going up into the mountains.

One of our teachers recently left here. He and his whole family went to the States – to Dallas, Texas where they will be studying linguistics. He is a Baptist and he feels that God is calling him to devote his life to a little tribe in the jungle and so he is going to study linguistics in Dallas for a few years and then return to work with the tribe. He will learn their language, put it in writing, develop a textbook of grammar and then get these people ready for Peru’s expansion out into the jungle.

That is the only direction Peru can expand really–into the jungle. They don’t want this expansion to be ruination for these tribes and so this particular man’s feeling is that his call in life is to prepare the way for these tribes to come into the greater Peruvian culture which includes Spanish and which includes a lot of other things that we commonly associate with civilization. These people out in jungle areas are really primitive.

We are indeed blessed by many people who are dedicating a portion, or all of their lives to work in a foreign country trying to help people understand the Gospel message, trying to help people get along with other people and change slowly, without change becoming disruptive in their lives. We have people here who are interested in the renewal of the Church in Peru, be they Protestant or Catholic. At least among the foreign people coming here, there seems to be a rather harmonious feeling between Protestant and Catholics who are coming to work here. That is my impression thus far. I might be proved wrong later on.

I hope these personal comments might be of interest to the people back home concerning my work here. I don’t feel it’s just my work. I hope they are very much with me in it by their prayers and by their interest, even writing a letter or something like that. When I get a vacation I hope to be speaking in some of the churches in the archdiocese, at least taking up a collection every now and then for the work here. But I want this consciousness to be theirs – that they do have a part in helping the Church in a less blessed area of the world where priests aren’t quite as numerous.