Society of St James
Just a quick blog to put up a photo of the present members of the Society of St James - 'borrowed' from the blog of Cardinal Seán O'Malley!

San Juan de Lurigancho



Receiving an appointment to a parish has been a different experience to anything previous in my ministry. Firstly the variety of different places from the high Andes to the coastal desert has given me much to think about and reflect on. And secondly beginning work in a parish can also mean beginning from scratch. No house to move to and much infrastructure lacking in terms of church and meeting rooms. And that is what I shall be doing in San Juan de Lurigancho, working closely with a Peruvian priest for the coming months.

San Juan de Lurigancho lies to the east of Lima in the Diocese of Chosica. In 1940 there were 1,036 inhabitants, in 1961 that had risen to 9,456. By 1986 the figure was 447,928 and in 1997, 676,795. No doubt the figure ten years on is much higher still. People are still desperately trying to find work in Lima and here is one of the places to come if you have little or no money.

Some statistics about San Juan de Lurigancho:



35% Under 15 years old
27% Chronically undernourished
22% Without electricity
30% Without water
13% Without drainage
9% With no amenities
22% With just one room in the house
34% With an earthen floor…

Where the St James Society will begin to work will have even higher rates of poverty as the parish will be where people are still moving into makeshift housing, rather than the now more established areas which at least boast better basic amenities even if conditions are still tough.

At first glance at this area you would wonder how can people still be moving into this place, but the barren hills here which have long been too inhospitable are now the only option and houses are springing up perched on the hillsides.

For these coming months I am glad to be working alongside Fr Jorge Alvarez a well respected priest in this City and then the plan will be to form a new parish with two St James priests working together. I am sure I’m just at the beginning of a very steep learning curve!

Mountain Parishes

In February I packed my rucksack and set off for the Peruvian Andes around the world famous former Inca capital of Cuzco. The St James’ Society has remote two parishes in the neighbouring prelature of Sicuani as well as a priest working in the training of local priests. Once again I experienced the tiring effects of altitude on arriving in the tourist city of Cuzco. It was good to take a couple of days to acclimatize in this beautiful and historic city. Amongst the fascinating engineering of Inca buildings and the unique beauty of the Spanish colonial churches there was even a bar selling Greene King ales on tap!





The pleasures of a city well adapted to the needs of a healthy tourist population were soon to be forgotten as our bus left the depot. Traffic police in an attempt to improve the tragically poor history of road safety now check buses as they leave. No standing passengers allowed… until the bus turns a few corners and another 20 people board out of sight of the officials! I was glad to be near a window just to be able to breathe, although for the month of the carnival you have to keep windows tightly closed when passing groups of children if you want to avoid the customary water bombs! Ten hours of bumpy rough dirt tracks later we arrived in Velille, a town of 5000 where two priests from the Philippines serve the town and surrounding countryside stretching many miles. Here poverty levels are some of the very highest in the world, according to statistics on resources, education, health, economics. Like many people in Peru, the inhabitants of this area suffered terribly in the years blighted by terrorism especially in the 1980’s.



I was lucky enough to be in the town for the carnival celebrations just before Lent began. Great numbers from the town and surrounding villages turned out for a day of music and folk dancing… and of course water fights!






I continued my journey through the Andes heading for Bolivia where I needed to visit the Peruvian consulate in La Paz - nothing is ever straightforward in bureaucracy! On the way I visited a floating village on Lake Titicaca near Puno. Near here Ray O’Sullivan teaches in the local seminary which hopefully in years to come will be fully able to supply priests to work in these parts.

The border at Desaguadero is a bridge dividing the town in two and the responsibility for finding the right office for passport stamps lies solely with the traveller! Any hopes for a bus with a little more leg room than the Peruvian ones were soon dashed as I squeezed into a local ‘combi’ in which I felt like an oversized character from Alice in Wonderland!



What was meant to be a quick stop in La Paz and a brief visit to the consulate turned into a three day stay and sadly cut short my visit to the Gamboa family in Cochabamba who so generously and patiently welcomed me into their home for five months last year. It was though good to see them again and also to meet the three new priests studying Spanish at the language school for the St James’ Society before heading back to Lima - thankfully by plane!

St James’ gathering

It was good to have the opportunity to meet all those working for the Society at the Annual General Meeting held every February in Lima. The members range from those who have served in South America all their priestly lives to those like myself making a commitment of five years. What characterizes those I have met is a great enthusiasm and energy for the work amongst the peoples of South America. Whatever the hardships of life here, the response is far from despairing and instead seems to be a source of determination, joy and resolve.



It was good to welcome to Lima the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Seán O’Malley under whose leadership the Society exists. The Cardinal clearly has a great interest in the work going on and wrote much about his visit in his personal blog on the website of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Pictured here are the new St James' priests with the Director, Finbarr O'Leary, and Cardinal Seán.