Parish journey to Africa
Father Paulinus Mangesho thinks that if members of a Bay Area parish and an African one could get to know one another, both communities would be the richer for it.
Next month, Father Mangesho will put his idea into action. He will lead a three-person delegation from Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Redwood City, where he is parochial vicar, to the parish where he grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Father Mangesho and two Mt. Carmel parishioners, Maritza Longland and Maritsa Techioli, will depart July 29. When they arrive in Father Mangesho's home parish, St. Francis Xavier Parish in the Diocese of Moshi, they will meet the pastor and in turn be introduced to the many small Catholic communities that are the heart of parish life.
Father Mangesho, who has served as a parish priest in the Archdiocese of San Francisco since 1999, hopes to establish a sister parish partnership between the two communities. He believes the partnership could bring economic support to the African parish, where incomes average $26 a month and people may have to receive outside aid in a drought year. The exchange could lead to progress on the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which call for eliminating the worst global poverty by 2015, he said.
It is also Father Mangesho's hope that for the American community, the link could lead to new ways to energize parish life based on African ways. Father Mangesho believes the visitors from Mt. Carmel, where 52 parishioners have signed up to support the sister parish project, will be surprised by the vibrancy of the Church in his native country. In the Diocese of Moshi, nearly two in three people are Catholic. Children are taught about the vocations at an early age and many choose the life: women and men religious number 1,200. Father Mangesho knew he wanted to be a priest when he was in the seventh grade, and four of his sisters are nuns.
Father Mangesho also described tight-knit parishes despite enormous sizes of as many as 2,000 families.He mentioned that children commonly walk five miles to attend Mass. He spoke of pious communities that work together to pray and respond to members' problems. He underlined the importance of a system of religious education where small groups made up of a child's parents, godparents and some 10 other families prepare the child for a lifetime of participation in the faith.
"What makes the Church in Africa more vibrant is the teaching," said Father Mangesho, a member of the Apostolic Life Community of Priests, also known as the Holy Spirit Fathers. "Especially the catechism. The way they teach it is more practical. It is for life. They are taught that baptism is the first sacrament we receive and it opens the door for all the other sacraments. So when they receive the second one it is a continuation, it is not something that will end."
Techioli, a member of the Mt. Carmel social concerns ministry, echoed that thought: "The reason I'm going is because from what I've seen, the way of living is more caring and more family oriented. The spiritual part of it - perhaps that's something we need to reinforce here. We claim they're a poor country but they have other values that we don't.
The Mt. Carmel sojourners will be excited to share what they learn with other members of their community, Father Mangesho said. He predicted that the participation of children in Church life in his home parish will make a particularly strong impression. Rather than children's liturgies, his parish has children's Masses where only children participate, including leading the choir and taking the collection. The parents give them money to give when the plate is passed, even if it is only a penny.
"One may question why they are creating this relationship," Father Mangesho said. "As a sister parish how will the Church in America benefit from the Church in Africa because they are poor? But the Church in Africa may be richer than the Church in America but in a different way - not materially but maybe spiritually, maybe morally."
Listen to Father Mangesho's description of life in his home parish and his goals for the trip. Catholic San Francisco Online/Multimedia.
By Rick DelVecchio
From June 26, 2009 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
