Drinking with a Priest

Tonight I drank Flor de Cana (Nicaragua's national rum) with Father John and 2 of his church members from Kentucky who are staying at the Center. It was great! It was made even better by the fact that he was bashing on another priest from the community they went to visit. Father Victor, as can be surmised from the summary, does not want anyone else in the community having power, so the delegation of 3 from Kentucky spent five-hour long meetings listening to the Father ramble on about stealing "back" members from the Evangelical church. Meanwhile the other Nicaraguans, some of whom had ridden 2 to 3 hours on horses or the bus to be there, sat around and listened. At lunch they were finally able to talk to the community members a little bit, sitting around a table that had plastic chairs for everyone except Father Victor, who had the throne of a wooden chair at the head.

Then he took them out for a tour down a bumpy road for the afternoon. As they were just getting ready to pull into the driveway, Father John made the mistake of asking how enviromental issues in the area were being handled. "Horrible!" screamed Father John. "Here, I'll show you," then proceded to drive them 20 minutes away so that they could see the tree that was killed because someone made a fire beside it to burn their trash. While there, David, one of the church members, made the mistake of asking about the bells that had been donated to the church. "They're too short!" Father John exclaimed, then drove them clear across town to the church, so that they, in fact, could see that the tower was only 25 feet high, when it clearly needed to be 35 feet high to produce the right tones. By the time they got back to their house, their free time had dwindled from an hour and a half to 15 minutes, during which Father John went into a discourse about how he had no idea how the community would survive if he was assigned anywhere else.

To top it all off, Nicaragua has a largely Catholic-backed law that says women are not allowed to have abortions, even in life-saving situations for the mother. "It's a good law," said Father Victor. "Here, let me give you an example." Apparently his mother was warned that her pregnancy was very complicated, but that she went ahead with it anyway and that the world was so lucky because he could be born. When asked what happened to his mother, he added, "Oh, she died shortly afterward." Minor details apparently.

The men are going to attempt to call Pablo tomorrow, one of the "subversive" community members who is too empowered for Father Victor's tastes, to see if they can arrange a meeting without the head honcho, or at least hear how the situation really is. Apparently Pablo actually gives detailed, itemized reports about the community's work. I hope they are successful in reaching him!