legion of mary

Why Did the Legion of Mary Go to Bolivia?

By Fr. Stephen McGraw
Special to the HERALD
(From the Issue of 2/1/07)

Father Stephen McGraw, parochial vicar of St. Leo the Great Parish in Fairfax, was one of the spiritual directors for a local Legion of Mary group which recently conducted door-to-door visitations in La Paz, Bolivia. Following is his report.

Why Bolivia?
The Peregrinatio Pro Christo to Bolivia was conceived in part as a response to Pope John Paul II’s 1999 Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America, which was written in the wake of the World Synod of Bishops’ Special Assembly for America in 1997. This synod of American bishops in turn, was held in response to the pope’s own momentous call, uttered precisely on the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America, Oct. 12, 1992, for a meeting of bishops to address the challenge of the new evangelization in America. In his 1999 exhortation, the Holy Father made his own the synod’s call for greater missionary cooperation between dioceses within the one continent of America, north and south, including the sending of lay faithful as missionaries from one part of the Americas to the other. With regard to the challenge of the sects, the pope took up a disconcerting question that was raised by some of the Synod Fathers with regard to the Church in America, saying that “it is necessary to ask whether a pastoral strategy directed almost exclusively to meeting people’s material needs has not in the end left their hunger for God unsatisfied, making them vulnerable to anything which claims to be of spiritual benefit.”
Bolivia was chosen as the destination of the Peregrinatio Pro Christo precisely because it is known to be one of the most impoverished nations in the world and certainly the poorest in South America. The mission was thus conceived as an effort to allay the spiritual hunger of the people, even over and above the meeting of great material needs and as such was seen as a concrete response to the poignant query of the pope and the American bishops.
The spiritual need in Bolivia, moreover, is know to be particularly great. There is an acute need for strong religious formation of the people, a need that is borne out by the lack of religious practice among many Catholics, by the sustained activity and influence of the sects and other religious groups, and by the disturbingly small number of priests and religious vocations in the country. As one young religious sister from Peru, who was collaborating with us during the Peregrinatio, said in one exchange with Bolivian youth, if there are no vocations there will be no future for Bolivia.
This situation has, as is well known, been recently exacerbated by the stance of the new government in the country, which has been unfriendly toward the Church and has made statements depicting Catholicism as a vestige of European colonialism that is or should be a thing of the past for Bolivia. Religious tension has thus greatly increased in recent months, to include a virulently anti-Catholic demonstration that took place in La Paz just before the Peregrinatio ended. There is even a concern among the people themselves that a real persecution could be forthcoming.
Thus, the choice of Bolivia was made bearing in mind as well the injunction of the Legion of Mary Handbook, which urges that the Peregrinatio Pro Christo be made to a country “in which the religious conditions are bad.” Although in some sense, this traditional and overwhelmingly Catholic country might not seem to meet this criterion, in important respects such a qualification is indeed seen to be more than justified.
The legionaries who participated in the Peregrinatio witnessed outstanding manifestations of the people’s spiritual hunger and the way in which the sacraments and devotions of the Church worked to alleviate it and to bring out the people’s religiosity, orienting it to the encounter with Christ in the Church and her sacraments (those unforgettable crowds that surrounded us to receive the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; those enthronements of the Sacred Heart, followed by multiple confessions there in the home).
As for meeting the challenge of the sects, perhaps one encounter during the Peregrinatio came to serve as a symbolic joinder of this critical issue raised by Ecclesia in America. A team of two legionaries, going door to door, came upon a house in which members of an evangelical group or sect were just then proselytizing in the home. When the representatives of the sect asked the legionaries what group they were with, the response was given, “the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church.” To this, the astonished evangelicals responded, “But Catholics are mute.” Acknowledging, then that these Catholics at least were not, they proceeded to yield and be seated to hear the Church’s message. St. Paul said to those first Christians: “We believe and therefore we speak.”
In the Peregrinatio, a headline was set, of which others, both within and without the Church, could not but take notice: Catholics, as it were, saying with St. Paul: “We believe and therefore speak.”
Finally, it should be mentioned that another motive that loomed large in the choice of Bolivia was the memory of the Servant of God, Alphonso Lambe, who left his native Ireland at the age of 20 and gave the last six years of his life to establish the Legion of Mary in South American and, in particular, in La Paz, Bolivia. It is hoped that he will soon be beatified. The Peregrinatio to La Paz was undertaken as a journey in the footsteps, so to speak, of Alphonso Lambe, in the hopes of reproducing his spiritual fruitfulness in the very city that was such an important center of his apostolic labors.