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e VOL. 46, NO. 2S
• Friday, July 19,2002
FALL RIVER, MASS.
Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly • $14 Per Year
Need is still great in Guaimaca Approximately 25,000 children suffer from chronic taminated water and other basic sanitary tips, there malnutrition and 36 of every 1000 children die from wouldn't be as much sickness so easily spread," said . Sister Ceballos. . diarrhea each year. SEEKONK - A nine-day trip to Guaimaca, HonOne-fifth of the population cannot read or write. While Sister Ceballos has been in Guaimaca since duras is not on any travel agency's list of vacation pack- Only 21 percent of Honduran children finish primary August of last year, Potenza and her travel mates expeages. But for nine individuals in the Seekonk and school and a mere four percent have access to a high rienced the poverty there for the first time last month. Dighton areas, just such a trip was a rewarding, emo- school education. "This group, with much encouragement and support "A large part of the health problems the Honduran from Father George Harrison, pastor of Our Lady of tional and educational experience. The travelers, from Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and St. Mary's parishes in people experience is. because of a lack of education," Mt. Carmel, had been preparing for this trip for nearly Seekonk and St. Peter's in Dighton, recently completed said Potenza. "If the people knew not to drink con- nine months," said Potenza. "And after having been there, we all wish we could go back their sojourn to visit the "mission and do more for these people. team" of Fathers Paul Canuel and "There is just so much poverty Joseph Blyskosz and Sister Marie and sickness, and there's so much CebaJlos, O.P., in the FaJl River diowe in the Fall River diocese can do cese-sponsored mission there. for them. Father Paul told us, before Pamela Potenza, an Our Lady of we arrived, that there were no 'big' Mt. Carmel parishioner, visited with projects for us to do, because he The Anchor this week, along with didn't want us to take work away Sister Ceballos to report on the good from the locals. But even without works this diocese is supporting in projects to do, we had no difficulty the extremely impoverished locale. finding people who needed our "Many of the things we take for help," said Potenza. granted, such as getting in our cars She related a story of an elderly and driving to church every Sunday, woman who lived in a small shack or taking the proper medicine when with one mattress-less fold-up bed we are sick, are impossibilities in for two people and a roof in dire Honduras," Sister Ceballos said. need of repair. "We assessed the Even with the mission team having situation, and bought the necessary been there for nearly two years, the materials and paid for the local lapeople "still need so much spiritubor to repair her modest home," ally and physically," she added. Potenza said. "We even bought an The Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, extra bed and a couple of mattresses one of seven dioceses in Honduras, for them. They were elated." recently released some very soberFathers Canuel and Blyskosz coning statistics about the Honduran stantly travel across the Guaimacan people. In a population of nearly countryside and mountainous reseven million, 66 percent live in A TEAM of volunteers from the Fall River diocese recently traveled to the diocesan poverty, many in extreme misery, mission in Guaimaca, Honduras. Among the people they helped was an elderly woman gions bringing the sacraments to the many Catholics who especially the indigenous people, living in a shack with a leaky roof and a mattress-less cot. (Photo courtesy of Pam Potenza) Turn to page nine - Guaimaca women, children and the elderly. By
DAVE JOLIVET EDITOR
ON SUNDAY, July 7, Corpus Christi Parish, East Sandwich, welcomed Bishop Sean P. O'Malley, OFM Cap., as parishioners celebrated the blessing and laying of the foundation stone (above) and time capsule of the fourth church building in parish history. At right, Father Marcel H. Bouchard, pastor, and newly ordained Deacon David Boucher assist the bishop at the ceremonies. (Photos by David Doolittle)
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