Villa El Salvador

In my second week here in Peru I have visited the work going on in Villa El Salvador. St James’ Society priests have been at work for many years in this sprawling new township to the south of Lima. Little more than 30 years ago this was a desert; an area of grey sand hills bordering on the Pacific Ocean. Now it counts around 500,000 inhabitants, nearly all who have arrived and simply moved onto a patch of land, in early days often resisted by the authorities. More recently the area has been planned and controlled more productively. Much of Villa El Salvador now has water supplied along with electricity, but areas with no amenities still remain, many of these areas being where Frs, Adrian, Simon, John and Gene are working.



I celebrated Sunday Mass in the nearly completed new church of Our Lady of Peace. Nearby the parish runs the medical centre of St Martin de Porres and religious sisters run a food centre and a home for children. It’s a place showing clearly the work of the Church responding to Christ’s call - I have come that you may have life and have it to the full (John 10:10). I was as ever struck at the enthusiasm of the people here, in spite of the hardships of life in this dusty, sandy new town you don‘t go far to find a smile.



I have also seen this week the work going on at one of the Society’s long standing parishes - one that could soon be handed over to local leadership. Here the roads have largely been surfaced, water and electricity are now guaranteed, the parish is running with good facilities, medical care is at hand and schools are established. So much has been achieved to bring reasonable standards of living even if it may still be a far cry from life in most Western societies.

The first weekend in Peru

In these first few weeks I shall be getting to know the various parishes run by the St James’ Society. Everything works differently here and I’m realising that my pastoral experience from England needs some not so fine retuning in order to operate!



My first parish visit took me to Ate Vitarte a new area of Lima to the east of the City. Barren grey hills and often greyer weather make this an unlikely place for people to choose to live, but so often in the lives of Peruvian people any choice is a rare event. New houses spring up here in great numbers, perched on the arid hillsides with no amenities. Electricity may arrive in time, water and sewerage much later. In the meantime water lorries sell water by the cubic metre. People have flooded towards the Capital now for many years creating a city of some 9 million people - more than a third of the population of Peru. Since 1940 the population has increased 13 fold!

Frs Darren Reid and David Costelloe from St James’ Society are beginning to form the area into a parish, building on pioneering work by groups of religious sisters establishing chapels and places for people to meet. There will be much work to do in the coming years as the need for basic health care and education is great, as well as the need for a central church and priests’ house.



At the weekend I celebrated two of the masses and came away uplifted by these celebrations, the singing and participation was wonderful to experience and there was a great warmth of welcome from people - especially when they heard that this was my first weekend in Peru - something that may have been given away anyway by my still hesitant Spanish!