Sunday June 1st. 2008

Fr Colin MacInnes

A priest from South Uist working wonders for the poor in Ecuador

Unless you have lived with Fr. Colin, as I did in Oban for two years, you cannot possibly realise the incredible pastoral energy of this priest which he uses to communicate the gospel of Christ to young and old. He is a living dynamo for the faith, and he has the gift of  making people willing to help him with whatever work is undertaking.

He felt a calling to go on missionary work to help the poorest of the poor, and although Bishop MacPherson gave him permission to join the Society of St. James for a period of  five years, he was still very loathe to lose such a good priest for the diocese. The five years has stretched to twenty-three years!

The Society of St. James is a missionary order run entirely by priests who have been given leave from their own diocese to work in the missions for a period of time, and then return home again to parish life.

In 1985, Fr Colin was asked to go to Ecuador, to a shanty town outside of Quito, high up in the Andes. There were 60,000 people living in slums and in the most awful conditions, The Pueblo, as it was called, was run by a gang of communists who controlled the area.

Fr Colin said his first mass on a street corner as there was no church. People were not encouraged to practise their faith, and there was no church for them to have mass. With his incredible enthusiasm, and his way of attracting people to help him, he built a large church, and managed to attach a small presbytery to it. The people had a deep faith that nothing could ever eradicate, and in no time at all, the church began to fill to capacity for Sunday mass, something they had missed for so long. Latterly he had to say nine masses each Sunday so that everyone could attend mass. Parents brought along their children to be baptised, couples to have their marriage blessed, and, of course, the sick were visited and holy communion brought to them, and the dead given a Christian funeral. In no time at all, he had broken the power of the communists and had won over the support of the people. To achieve the many basic things  for the people, he had to rely on the goodness of the people in our own diocese, especially South Uist, whose generosity allowed him to make a start to provide  the very essentials.  Babies were dying because of water polluted  by sewage, so the first thing was to establish a clean water supply.
 

He founded a Co-operative, with support from America, that allowed him to build virtually a new town over the years, with  good houses, proper roads, street lighting and many other amenities.

He also created  a Credit Union where people could invest their hard-earned money and be sure that it was safe.

He had little help from the Ecuador government in nearby  Quito, but as they became ware of all the good he was achieving, they wanted to be involved to attract some praise, and so they invited Fr. Colin to address the full  parliament to plead a case for the poor.

After twenty years, and more, the Pueblo is now a fine town with buildings, shops, houses, hospital and schools. During this time, Fr, Colin was diagnosed with prostate cancer, broke a hip, and had  other injuries.
The communists made several attempts on his life by using paid assassins, and one of them almost succeed. A man broke into his bedroom one night with a large knife, intending to murder him, but he spoke quietly and kindly and convinced him to depart in peace.
When things were really dangerous for him, several of his parishioners dressed as Fr Colin look-alikes, willing to be attacked and perhaps murdered in order to save his life, such was the love they had for their parish priest.
While being interviewed on television one evening, in an unguarded moment, he accused some members of the government of corruption.       >>>>>>>>>>>>

Pipes were laid throughout the village, and for the first time families had clear, pure drinking water. Once this was achieved, his next priority was to build a clinic where the sick could be attend, and which would also provide ante-natal care, and care for mothers and babies.
The vast area was a shanty town filled with tin shacks, and the living conditions for families were intolerable.