Guatemala : A vehicle for pastoral work in the apostolic vicariate of El Petén
With an area of over 14,000 square miles (36,000 km²) the apostolic vicariate of El Petén covers more than a third of the total territory of Guatemala. But it is thinly populated with only around 900,000 inhabitants. The journeys are long and distances are measured not in miles or kilometres but in hours, given the appalling state of the roads which make every journey far longer than one would normally expect. And some of the parishes are larger even than entire dioceses in other countries.
The overwhelming majority of the population somehow manage to scrape a living from the land. Many families live in real poverty and have no access to education or medical care. Drugs, corruption, unemployment and social inequalities make life hard for the ordinary people.
Bishop Mario Fiandri has been in charge of the vicariate for almost 17 years now. He explains: „What really matters here, in our pastoral work in El Petén, is not the job titles or ideas, and we shouldn‘t be concerned above all about things like money, paper, material or other external activities. Instead the most important thing is visiting the people, real personal contacts, a pastoral outreach of encounter in which we devote time to people – the young and the elderly, to children and adults, the sick and healthy, the poor and abandoned, to those who are close to the Church but also to those who have wandered away from the Church and who criticise us.“ To this end he visits the various parishes on average three times a week, often travelling for hours on end. In fact the journeys to the most far-flung villages can even take as long as 15 hours. And this can only be achieved in a powerful and sturdy vehicle.
The vehicle the bishop currently uses is already 20 years old and frequently breaks down. And so we helped him purchase a sturdy all-terrain vehicle so that he can travel to as many of the parishes as possible. Thanks to our benefactors’ generosity, the Church can keep the mission alive in El Petén!