By Fr. Gerry Creedon
Special to the HERALD
(From the issue of 2/5/04)

A Dominican friend invited me to join him for a few days of golf at La Romana before I headed for the Arlington Diocesan Mission along the frontier with Haiti. My attention to the challenges of "Teeth of the Dog" was diverted by the huge mansions that were sprouting up all around, each one fit for a convent. The more splendid were built for the owner of Presidente beer and the Director of Public Works. The fact that the peso had lost half its value in the past year was no deterrent. Three of the major banks have collapsed in Enron-style frauds. New hotels and skyscrapers on the waterfront in Santo Domingo were either signs of the economic progress of the past decade or newly acquired drug money.

Journeying west toward Elias Pina it became clear that the prosperity of the ‘90s was not evenly shared. The new tunnels and bridges of the capital’s thruways gave way to pot-holed roads and unrepaired bridges. Belaguer’s promise of a paved road to Banica was only half fulfilled.

Yet Banica, Pedro Santana and the community of 15,000 campesinos, that I had come to serve in 1991 as their first resident priest in 20 years, was a changed place. In 13 years a new hospital had been built, equipped and staffed. The hospital orthodontist now provides more than extraction in her dental office. Visiting doctors provide surgery and vaccination. Health care promoters have access to rural pharmacies.

New aqueducts and wells in the hills provide good quality water, the best medicine to many rural neighborhoods. An aqueduct provides consistent, though still undrinkable, water to the main villages of Banica, Pedro Santana and Sabana Cruz. These villages also enjoy a much more stable electricity service. Several schools have been built.

In an area that boasted five telecommunications employees but no telephone in 1991, a phone system and a church-based radio-telephone network connect people who had lived a 14-hour walk from one another. Rural roads give farmers access to markets. The falling peso has cut back imported food and raised the value of local rice, beans and peas. However salaried people such as teachers who are paid $250 (U.S. dollars) a month have lost half the value of their income.

Perhaps the clearest sign of transformation is the health of children. In the early ‘90s it distressed me to baptize infants only to bury their malnourished bodies months later. This kind of hunger has vanished.

In this changing context, the role of the Church’s mission to promote faith and life remains essential. Bishop Jose Grullon has been a major architect and promoter of rural roads and of an integral development that lays the base of progress in a spirituality of hope.

The external signs of the Church’s life are promising: a renovated church in Banica and Pedro Santana with lights, fans, microphones, beautiful décor, many neighborhood chapels and a new community center in Banica and Pedro Santana. Radio Corazon offers diocesan news and programs to the parishes and a local radio transmission broadcasts to the frontier.

Father Dan Gee serves as pastor to the mission assisted by Father Jack O’Hara. Two Brazilian sisters reside in Pedro Santana serving the parish of San Jose. Roberto from Pedro Santana assists as a permanent deacon and Norberto from Banica is only a year from ordination as the first native priest to come from our mission. A nurse and a volunteer from Arlington complete the staff of the mission.

The network of neighborhood-based ecclesial communities that forms the backbone of the Dominican church has been strengthened by the pastoral strategy of the diocese. During my sojourn I observed Bishop Grullon on his pastoral visit as he reviewed a detailed statistical report with the leaders of a district. There was no reluctance to identify the lights and shadows in the services. The bishop and the sisters confronted the local mayor and together developed an alternative plan that would decentralize taxes so that rural roads and forestation would benefit.

All of the sacraments are now celebrated with unprecedented access and preparation. In a culture unsupportive to monogamy, many marriages are now blessed. Catechesis is increasingly offered in every neighborhood. The spiritual health of all these aspects of church life finds their summit in the full-throated Eucharistic liturgies, throbbing with the rhythm of traditional drums.

When the development of the mission is recounted, the names of Padre Tomas Cassidy, Padre Donald Rooney, Padre Patricio Posey, Padre Juan O’Hara and Padre Daniel Gee are repeated in a litany of thanksgiving. Father Gee shared his experience of visiting a poor, demented young man whom he discovered tied naked to a poll, beyond treatment. He struggles to find him and his family some avenue of relief. Father O’Hara accompanies the child who needs a prosthesis all the way to Boston. Pierre was at the rectory door as I left. The cancerous tumor in his jaw must be removed. He is a teacher from across the river in the neighboring diocese of Hinche, Haiti, where surgery in unavailable. Father Gee, a computer wiz, makes contact with Sister Beatrice in Santo Domingo to make the arrangements. The weather-beaten jeeps that carry Pierre and many more to the help they need tell their own story, registering as many as 250,000 kilometers. The people know that our priests and volunteers care and that makes all the difference.