FROM THE DIRECTOR
By Fr. Martin de Porres Walsh OP

ith this new Mission newsletter in color, we celebrate this New Year of 2004 as the 40^th anniversary of our Dominican Mission Foundation. In biblical times, this would be declared as a year of jubilee, a time of thanksgiving. This seems to be a wonderful opportunity to offer prayers and gratitude to all of you who have made our service to the poor, needy, and sick of our Dominican Missions possible.

Truly the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ has been proclaimed and the suffering have found hope, consolation, and healing through the generosity and sacrifices of all of you who receive this newsletter. I encourage you to request more copies to pass on to your relatives and friends so that our ministry might be made known to more people.

In 1963 our Western Dominican Province, responding to the request of Pope John XXIII for religious communities to establish Missions in Latin American, took on the responsibility of the world’s largest parish, that of Ocosingo-Altamirano, Chiapas in the jungles and mountains of southern Mexico near the border of Guatemala. Fr. Joseph Asturias, O.P., Fr. Vincent Foerstler, O.P., and Br. Raymond Bertheaux, O.P. were our first Missionaries. They were soon joined by Sisters of the Presentation from California and North Dakota.

n the beginning of 1964 Fr. Mark McPhee, O.P. began the Dominican Mission Foundation amidst a great deal of enthusiasm among some of you who still receive this newsletter and are part of our Dominican Mission Family. After Fr. McPhee, our best-known Mission Director was Fr. Joseph Asturias who served for 21 years until his death on November 15, 1995. During his time as Director, he chose Nancy Loscavio to be the Foundation Manager. Nancy has been with the Foundation for 16 years and has carried on the spirit of Fr. Asturias, guiding and coordinating all the daily activities of the office and being available to talk with you and answer your questions.

Her two-year-old daughter, Olivia, adds a touch of joy when she accompanies her mother to the office. Nancy is assisted one day a week by a dedicated assistant, Betty Carley. Our overhead is very low and this is due in large part to the many hours of volunteer work by John Miller and Bob Morrison. We are grateful for their labor in assembling every newsletter and labeling each envelope for mailing to you.

ur Mission Foundation continues to support the Dominican Friars and Sisters in Ocosingo and Altamirano, Chiapas as they minister to 200,000 Indians of the Tzeltal and Tojolobal ethnic groups living in 1,000 communities. Through their efforts, the Catholic faith is becoming ever deeper in the life and culture of the people. Through evangelization, the celebration of Masses, and catechesis by 1,000 Indian catechists (following the tradition of Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, O.P., the Dominican first Bishop of Chiapas) every effort is made to incorporate the rich indigenous customs with our Christian faith. Mediation, reconciliation, and the reconstruction of peace continue to be priorities in the midst of the recent political upheavals in Chiapas. Hospital San Carlos in Altamirano (which the Dominican Mission Foundation began in 1967 with Fr. John Flannery, O.P. and the Presentation Sisters) continues to flourish under the direction of the Mexican Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Last year the sisters treated 13,188 patients and 2,518 hospitalizations: 45 percent were little children. The Indian people still travel for days to reach the hospital. Construction has begun on the new hospital building and our Mission Foundation is helping with the costs.

s you receive this newsletter, I will be in Chiapas helping at the Mission for one month with Br. Michael Hurley, O.P., one of our Dominicans in formation. We hope to share with you our experiences in our March newsletter.

In 1979 Fr. Paul Scanlon, O.P. our former provincial, and I were able to fulfill the dream of re-establishing the Dominican Order in Baja California, Mexico. (In 1772, Fr. Junipero Serra, O.F.M. and the Franciscans entered into an agreement whereby the Dominicans would serve the Missions of Baja California and the Franciscans serve the Missions of our present state of California.)

We began our first Mexicali Mission in 1995 and Fr. David Bello, O.P., Fr. Vincent Foerstler, O.P., and Fr. Tom Kraft, O.P. answered a request of the local diocese to move our Mission to minister in very poor settlements, some of which (to the east of the city) still do not have electricity or running water. Thanks to your help and the sacrifices of the people, we have now built four modest churches. Since September we now have ministering with us two Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of Christian Doctrine. Our April newsletter will tell about the ministry and the needs of the Mexicali Mission.

ur Dominican Mission Foundation has been active in Guatemala City through the ministry of Br. Raymond Bertheaux, O.P. as he encouraged our support for children of street vendors who attended our Padre Betanzos School and the Clinica Santo Domingo where the poor receive medical aid. Both are located within the ruins of our old monastery next to our Dominican Church of Santo Domingo. Even though Br. Raymond has returned to our St. Albert’s Priory in Oakland, California, some of you are continuing to provide support for these endeavors.

At Rabinal, high in the mountains of Guatemala, our Fr. Timothy Conlan, O.P. ministers in an area where many of the indigenous people were massacred in the past political violence of Guatemala. As you remember from his accounts in our newsletters, he serves 12 communities of Maya Indians, some of which he has to travel to on footpaths. His projects range from building adobe chapels with the people, to putting in sanitation and irrigation projects.

We are very grateful to Dolores Meehan and the Young Adult Group of St. Dominic’s Church in San Francisco. They recently made pottery replicas of Fr. Tim’s adobe chapels and sold them asking the buyers to use them as little banks for Advent contributions to his chapel fund.

s you know from our last two newsletters, we are deeply involved in continuing our Western Dominican Province commitment to supporting the Tala Leper Colony in the Philippines. Sr. Rosa Yaya, O.P., the Director of the Holy Rosary Schools (which provide free education for Leper children) will be here on the West Coast in April and some of you may have the opportunity to meet her in person.

n Lithuania, years of communism and the Iron Curtain sapped the strength of the Church. The people’s lives were controlled from Moscow by Soviet tanks, secret police, and terror. Churches were closed and religious practice forbidden. People disappeared by the hundreds of thousands. Our Dominican roots in the Baltic’s go back over 700 years. After the fall of communism, our Master General asked for friars to volunteer for ministry in Lithuania. Fr. David O’Rourke, O.P., in his mid-sixties at the time, answered the call and began to study the difficult Lithuanian language. He now ministers in our Dominican Church in Vilnius, teaches on various levels and has put together an incredible marriage preparation program to strengthen faith and family life in Lithuania.

Throughout the past ten years, we have all followed in our newsletters the exciting ministries of our Fr. Kieran Healy, O.P. in Kenya. More recently he has described for us his latest project of building up St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Nairobi. Working in collaboration with the young Kenyan friars, he has been a true missionary in the sense of developing native vocations so that the leadership and ministry can be passed on to them. He has now decided to return home and will be leaving Kenya in June. He and our Dominican Mission Foundation have played a major role in the establishment of the Church and the Dominican Order in East Africa. We will keep you posted on his activities and plans.