ACN Reaches Out to Remote Corner of Stricken Colombia

A leading Catholic charity is poised to step up help for Christians in a forgotten corner of the world after staff was able to visit to one of Latin America’s most dangerous countries.

Projects heads from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) first made plans to visit Colombia’s Choco region four years ago, but safety concerns in a country notorious for kidnapping, gun crime and drug trafficking meant the trips had to be repeatedly postponed. Finally, late last month, ACN Latin American expert Xavier Legorreta got the security breakthrough he needed and the visit went ahead.

Mr. Legorreta returned with dozens of project requests from a region of Colombia along the Pacific coast bedeviled, not only by security concerns, but by massive poverty, extreme humidity and heat as well as poor communications. Bishops Mr. Legorreta visited were at last able to present to him requests for Mass stipends for poor and remote priests, churches and chapels in need of repairs and Child’s Bibles and posters for young people to learn about Christianity.

Stressing the risks involved, Mr. Legorreta said it was his “most dangerous trip” in 14 years at ACN, and he told how he travelled with police protection and bodyguards. With air travel considered less risky, Mr. Legorreta made 13 flights across Choco in as many days. He said, “The bishops were so glad to see us. They are simple missionaries who depend on ACN and other charities to help the Church to grow. They turn to us because they know they can rely on us to provide them with what they need to help offer Christ to people who suffer so much.”

Most people living in the Pacific region of Choco are Afro-Americans, descendants of slaves brought over to Colombia by Spanish colonialists who have felt cut off from the rest of the country because of the geographical, cultural and racial differences. Quoting statistics giving a jobless total of 60 percent in the region, Mr. Legorreta said, “There are huge problems for these people. Drug trafficking is very common and guerrilla fighters make life very difficult.”

The political and social situation is at last improving, with incidents of kidnapping having plummeted from a high of more 3,500 in 2000 to barely 500 last year, a sign of success in Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s struggle against the FARC guerrilla rebels. For the Church in Choco, a key sign of hope is coming from elsewhere in Colombia where Catholicism is thriving. There are more than 1,000 seminarians across a Catholic country of 46 million – with more than 400 seminarians in the capital, Bogota, alone. Mr. Legoretta said, “There’s a lot of solidarity between the dioceses I visited and the others. The Catholic community really want to come and help.”

Among the ACN projects Mr. Legorreta visited was the rebuilt church in the town of Bayavista in the Quebdo Diocese, which was bombed in 2002, apparently by mistake.

Mr. Legorreta said, “Outside the church, there is a ‘Thank you ACN’ plaque. The church is a symbol of the need for reconciliation and healing after a period of great suffering.”

Colombia is a priority country for Aid to the Church in Need. Last year, the charity provided more than $1.5 million to help the suffering Church there.

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