Theology 2 in Venezuela #2

(By Michael Johnson)

Hello,

We, Jon, Michael, Steve, Allan, and Gregory, made it down to Venezuela safely, and this is now the third day in the country...I think. We were to arrive a day earlier than we actually did but our flight to Houston was cancelled, thus pushing everything back a bit.

Venezuela is a beautiful country, with very warm people. We have not encountered any problems thankfully. We toured the city (Ciudad Guyana) yesterday which is comprised of two different towns, much like the Twin Cities, San Felix where the parish is and Puerto Ordaz. It is a city of differences. The parish, like most of San Felix is extremely impoverished. Trash litters the street, the roads have potholes and the electricity goes out often. We lost power last night for about 6 hours. Water stops working as well. The parish maintains a three day supply of water however. If the power or water stays off too long, the people riot on the bridges connecting the two cities burning tires and causing the city to stop completely. Then the government is forced into addressing the problem. Puerto Ordaz does not have any of these problems. While this side of the river is impoverished, the other side has considerable more wealth. Instead of broken glass on the tops of the walls surrounding each house, as in San Felix, the residents of Puerto Ordaz have electric fences.

Crime everywhere within the city is extremely high. We are not allowed to go out at night, nor go alone during the day. But truth-be -old none of us really wants to wander around too much. The first night we were here a 15 year old member of the parish and a baby were gunned down, the family was supposed to talk with us last night, but they are grieving the loss of two children. Today we attended his funeral, what more can be said aside from the fact that it was a terrible event which happens all too often down here, indeed most funerals that the priests down here celebrate are for homicides.

As for things we have done thus far. We have had lunch with the bishop, Monsignor Mariano, he spoke frankly with us about his vocal criticism of Venezuela’s president and his policies. Of Venezuela’s bishops, he is the most outspoken of Chavez’s critics. Bishop Mariano in turn is routinely criticized by Chavez for not being among the poor, being rich, and extravagant, yet the bishop visits and stays at the parishes and lives among the people. He really has no choice but to celebrate Mass with the people as the cathedral is not finished, nor will it be anytime soon by the looks of it. He will be coming back Saturday to celebrate confirmations at this parish. By the way, this parish (Jesuscristo Resucitado) has 60,000 people in it and only two priests. There are 5 chapels around the area in which they cover.