Ministries Church universality discovered in
service
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
A number of Catholics in the Sioux
Falls, S.D., diocese did not exchange gifts this Christmas. Instead they gave
money they would normally have spent for holiday presents to some of the
poorest and most endangered Christians in the world.
Donations arrived at the chancery earmarked for Bishop Nicolas
Djomo and Catholics in his Tshumbe diocese in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
formerly Zaire, where civil war has brought hunger, destruction and death to
local people.
It is largely by chance that South Dakota Catholics learned of
Djomo and Tshumbe. Djomo and Sioux Falls Bishop Robert Carlson met in Rome in
1995 when both were on retreat at the Vatican. While Djomo was in Rome, the
area that includes his diocese came under rebel control.
Djomos residence was one of many material casualties of the
war, which raged across the country during the latter half of the 1990s.
Although a ceasefire agreement was signed in July 1999, it has often been
broken.
Djomo, who speaks French, knew only a few words of English when he
met Carlson, and Carlson spoke no French. Still the two established a certain
comfort level. Carlson sent Djomo a Christmas card in 1995, and Djomo -- who
was unable to return to his see for several months because of the war -- has
since made four trips to South Dakota.
His visits have helped Sioux Falls Catholics become aware of the
plight of many in Africa. In the Tshumbe diocese, where some 700,000 of the
countrys 52 million citizens live -- 225,000 of them Catholic -- the
average annual income is $220. The average lifespan is 49 years.
Djomo has become the voice of the voiceless Congolese poor, making
the case that his people are in desperate need of food, medicine and whatever
assistance can be provided. He describes his peoples living conditions as
much worse than those of the war-ravaged peoples of Bosnia or Kosovo, yet the
international community, by comparison, has paid scant attention to those in
his country.
Djomo has also talked to Sioux Falls Catholics about the need to
fund health care and education in his country. The Catholic church has been the
principal provider of schools, hospitals and clinics in the nation, even though
only half of its citizens are Catholic. In the past two years, Sioux Falls
Catholics have contributed $137,000 for the Tshumbe diocese.
South Dakota Catholics have responded out of a deep sense of
social justice, Bishop Carlson told NCR. They feel empathy
for those victimized by poverty, war and oppression, he said.
For the past four-and-a-half years, Sioux Falls Catholics have
also made financial gifts to Palestinian Catholics in Visitation parish in
Zababdeh, on the West Bank, where unemployment, violence and the retaliatory
destruction of Palestinian homes by the Israeli military have spread fear and
anger in the Christian community.
The South Dakota diocese has a sister relationship with the Holy
Land parish, said Carlson, who administered the Sacrament of Confirmation at
Visitation last year. The bishop has met often with Latin Rite Patriarch Michel
Sabbah of Jerusalem. In August, Carlson hosted Sabbah on his first visit to the
diocese.
The Latin Patriarchate has selected Palestinian students to study
in Sioux Falls. Currently four are enrolled at Mount Marty College, which is
run by Benedictines.
Both Djomo and Sabbah have expanded the idea of what it
means to be church. They symbolize the universality of the church,
Carlson told NCR in a telephone interview.
Sioux Falls Catholics, who number almost 120,000 and are largely
of German, Irish and Norwegian descent, have come to view outreach to
disadvantaged Catholics in other parts of the world as their mission or unique
ministry, the bishop said. The diocese has contributed $90,000 to aid the
Palestinians -- $10,000 raised by youth. Donations have flowed from rural and
city congregations, from parishes whose members are mainly white and from those
who are chiefly Native American or African-American.
Carlson credits the laity with being the prime movers
behind Sioux Falls Catholics extending a hand to African and Palestinian
Christians. Raised in an area of abundant wheat harvests, Dakotans find it hard
to imagine a diocese as poor as Tshumbe. Djomo said that his see lacks a backup
supply of wheat to make wafers for the Eucharist and has no machine for making
hosts.
Besides direct aid to Tshumbe and Zababdeh, Sioux Falls Catholics
have welcomed and assisted almost 2,000 Sudanese refugees, including hundreds
of the so-called lost boys of Sudan. These are bands of boys
dislodged from their families by war who roamed the Sudanese countryside and
were the focus of a 1992 Life magazine article. Sioux Falls is one of 21
U.S. dioceses that have taken refugees from Sudan, where civil war and
religious persecution have caused thousands to flee to Kenya, Ethiopia and
neighboring states.
Catholic volunteers in Sioux Falls assist the newcomers to find
and furnish housing. They introduce them to their new community, help those
with children to register them in school and provide employment counseling, job
training and placement. A committee of Catholics concerned about the Sudan has
arranged for the new immigrants to hold their own weekly liturgy with its
distinctive, celebratory music and prayers. Some 120 Sudanese attend the Sunday
Mass in St. Josephs Cathedral.
Now that the political climate has improved in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Carlson and other religious and lay leaders in Sioux
Falls are considering Djomos invitation to visit Catholics in Tshumbe.
The city lies some 600 miles due east of the capital, Kinshasa. Whether they
are able to go this year or in the future, the dioceses ministry to
Africa and its special relationship with Catholics there will continue, Carlson
said.
Patricia Lefevere is a special report writer for NCR.
National Catholic Reporter, January 18,
2002
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