Blessings and Challenges in Mexico
We are intensely committed to serving the poor in Mexico. Currently, we operate three missions in Mexico through which we not only spread the Gospel but also help to meet the most basic needs of these people.
We began our service in Mexico in 1985, serving in Yécora, Sonora, in the Diocese of Ciudad Obregón. When we arrived, Yécora had not had resident clergy for many years. Members of these isolated communities live in abject poverty and do not have their most primary needs met. Our friars are able to assist these poorest of God's children with things like shelter, food, medicine, transportation, and clothing, as well as with their spiritual needs.
While our friars continue their service in Yécora, we now also have the opportunity to minister to even more of our brothers and sisters in Mexico. Within a radius of 100 miles, three of our friars serve four indigenous tribes: the Pimas, the Guarajíos, the Yaquis and the Mayos. The tribes range from 2,500 to 45,000 members!
The Pimas, in particular, are extremely impoverished. Some still live in caves—very few can read or write. It is rare for a member of the Pima tribe to obtain more than a 5th-grade education. Last year, for the first time ever, a Pima finished high school!
The quality of health care available to some members of these indigenous tribes is very limited. Those who live in isolated villages must walk for several hours and then take more transportation for several more hours before reaching health care facilities. To address this pressing need, our friars are currently involved in planning the establishment of a government hospital for the Pimas and the poor, suffering families of the parish.
In our early days in Mexico, as the friars became more established in these small, Mexican communities, young local men began approaching the friars about joining the Capuchin Order. Because of these opportunities for vocations, the Order began its own formation program in Northern Mexico in the late 1990's to prepare young men to become Capuchins. Today we have a novitiate in Tres Ojitos, Chihuahua, and a student house in Ciudad Benito Juarez, Nuevo Leon.
We have also recently completed a new facility, the Padre Pio Mission for seminary students in Monterrey. Currently, we have one postulant, four novices and eight simply professed, studying to be priests and brothers in our formation program.
Seven of our students are focusing their apostolic efforts in Escondido—the Hidden Place. This village of 300 families is one of the poorest barrios of the Parish of Nuestra Senora del Rosario. These families have no running water and subsist in the barest of living conditions. Although there are currently only plans for a chapel, the villagers celebrate Mass with us on the site of the future chapel four Sundays a month, with only dirt and mud for a floor. Our students are forming Bible-study groups to help minister to this poor community.
As we preach the Gospel to these tribes, we are concurrently open to being evangelized by the poor. To that end, our friars train local catechists and encourage other lay leaders to share the Gospel in this growing, missionary region. With the help of these precious villagers, we have built seventeen humble chapels in the mountains of Sonora to provide simple places of worship for these many small villages.
To learn about how you can help us bring dignity and Christ to Mexico, click here.