| For a missioner working in a remote vilage on the flank of the
Andes Mountains in the coastal range of Southern Chile, large
concepts are relaized in small ways.
Preferential option for the poor is exemplified by replacing
open cook fires with wood-burning stoves, and inculturation
by the acceptance of a "Pesant Virgin."
"A missioner accepts the people in this area as identified with
the crucified Christ," said Father Stephen DeMott, a Maryknoll
priest who spent eight years in Chile, the last four in Nirivilo,
a village of 313, two hundred miles south of Santiago.
"I'm leaving my people behind with a great deal of sadness," he
said. "I know them as people, not statistics or names, and that
keeps me in touch."
Maryknoll, also known as the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of
America, was organized by the U.S. Bishops early this century to
represent the U.S. Church in overseas mission.
While the valleys of Chile's coastal range are among the most
fertile in the world, the campesinos of Nirivilo practice
dryland farming on land exhausted by erosion and years of poor
farming practices.
Because of the poverty and isolation, many villagers drift away
looking for employment in the urbann areas.
"This makes pastoral work very difficult," said Father DeMott.
"I started to form a youth group, the girls suddenly leave for
the cities to find jobs as live-in maids, the young men leave to
become lumberjacks."
"Poverty is a lack of health care, a lack of housing, a lack of
education," he said. "It is also the lack of ability to make
their needs known and to lift themselves up from poverty. It
has to do with human dignity. Poverty exists because people
don't know how to share equitably."
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| The Peace-Loving Bishop, by Andrew Carey
Lasting impressions for any foreigner leaving Israel are the queues at
Ben Gurion. The security checks are bad enough for a British citizen,
but if your name is Hussain rather than Weizman they must be tortuous
and intimidating.
Archdeacon Riah Abu el-Assal of Nazareth, Bishop-elect of Jerusalem, tells
many stories about his confrontations with airport security. The best is
this: "When they asked whether I was carrying any weapons, the rebel in
me awoke. `Yes' I said.
"I was ordered to walk a few steps away and, at what they thought was a
safe distance, they directed me to take out this `weapon' -- slowly. I
bent to my case, opened it slowly and removed my Bible, which I held up
for them to see.
"It is the only weapon I have ever carried; the only one I have ever
needed," he said.
My own frustration at leaving Israel is nothing to what he and other
Israeli citizens -- those for whom the only reason for suspicion is
that they are Arabs as well -- feel. But watching young men and women
throwing their prepared questions at foreigners, while a queue of Jewish
Israelis were nodded through, jarred.
"Have you been to Israel before? Why did you come? Did anyone give you
anything to take out of the country? What have you done each day in
Israel?.....Each day?". And so on, until I unpacked my luggage on an
inadequate desk and a paper written by Canon Riah in 1987 slipped into
view entitled "Torture of Child Prisoners Under Military Occupation."
I knew I was in for the third degree.
"You interviewed this priest? Why did you come all the way to Israel
to do that? What does he speak about when he goes to the West?"
My reply was simple: "He is an Israeli citizen and also an Arab Christian.
He has always believed in peace between Jew and Arab and has worked to
make that possible. He has also struggled for the rights of Israeli
citizens who are Arabs."
It is less than two weeks since the last Hamas suicide bomber struck on
a crowded bus, and you cannot blame the Israeli government for these
measures. For all of its short reconstituted history, Israel has been
surrounded by hostile powers which have questioned its very existence.
Now it is on the slow, fragile route to peace in the Middle East -- a
prospect welcomed by all but the fanatics on both sides of the divide.
Archdeacon Riah's eyes glow with pleasure as he talks about peace. He
shares the new confidence that his people feel now that Yassar Arafat
leads the Palestinians in the peace process and now that the agreements
are being hammered out -- slowly but surely.
Recently, the issue of `Water Rights' was almost settled. For the Arabs
in the West Bank and Gaza, the situation will improve, but for Arab
citizens of Israel their water is often in short supply.
Archdeacon Riah will in a few years' time have to leave Nazareth, his
birth-place, and the community in which he is held in such high regard.
In Nazareth he is a proud patriarch, taking pleasure in the increasing
accomplisments of his people. He spends much of his life writing letters
in support of his people -- Muslim or Christian. He takes a particular
interest in education. The Anglican Church has the best school in the
town.
But he is also trying to raise the status of Arab Israelis through further
education. He showed me a file of letters he had written to gain entrance
and grants for Arab young people to universities throughout the world.
Poorer families often get funded by 100 per cent, as a result of his
tireless letter writing.
At Christ Church, Nazareth, I meet Yusuf, who is studying International
Law in London. With typical kindness, Yusuf offers to take me to the
airport. His funding, gained by Archdeacon Riah's efforts, is beginning
to run out and he needs to find other sources. Yusuf speaks with fierce
pride about Archdeacon Riah. He tells a story of how the Israeli
authorities were looking at ways of deporting the crusading priest.
Margaret Thatcher personally intervened, he says with a smile.
[Anglican World, Michaelmas 1995]
Archdeacon Riah will soon be ordained Bishop-Coadjutor of the Diocese of
Jerusalem, and will succeed Bishop Samir Kafity upon his retirement in 1998.
The Diocese of Jerusalem includes Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jerusalem,
The West Bank, and Gaza. The diocese has 28 parishes with 8500 communicants,
95% of whom are Arab Christians. It operates 13 schools, 1 seminary, 5
hostels, 2 orphanages (in Ramallah), 3 institutes for the deaf, 2 major
hospitals (in Gaza and Nablus), 1 nursing school, 1 vocational school (in
Amman), 1 youth ministry center, 1 home for the elderly, and 1 home for
mentally impaired children.
The Bishop of Jerusalem also serves as President Bishop of the Episcopal
Church of Jerusalem and The Middle East, which includes three other dioceses:
Iran, Cyprus and the Gulf, and Egypt and North Africa.
/john
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