(ANS-San Pedro Carchá) – On Friday, December 21st. Mgr. Rodolfo Valenzuela, Titular of the Diocese of Verapaz, blessed a new church dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe in the village of San Giacinto. The town is one of many villages in the area of the parish of San Pedro Carchá, entrusted to the pastoral care of the Salesians. Pastoral activity carried out by the parish is entirely geared to the ethnic Maya-Q'eqchí, visiting over 350 villages pastorally and a population of about 250,000 inhabitants.

The Church has been built thanks to a benefactor of the United States and the Missions Procurator of  New Rochelle, especially with the direct involvement of Mrs. Kelli Bochnik and Fr. Mark Hyde. The construction took about a year and saw all the villagers committed; the women also contributed to the building of the church carrying sand and cement through the forest.

The construction of a church in these villages is an important stimulus to spiritual, social and civil development of the population. The church, in fact, is not only a place of worship, but also a meeting and socializing place, an impetus to urban development of the town: the houses that were of wood, gradually begin to become made of bricks.

In his homily, the Bishop recalled a Q'eqchi song which says "lao’o Santiles "(we are the Church), stressing that the community should increasingly engage in living Gospel values according to the experience of the first Christian communities, as we are told in the Acts of the Apostles. He also remembered and thanked the Missions Procurator of  New Rochelle for the work done for several years to help the Diocese in projects for the benefit of the poorest.

Fr Vittorio Castagna, in Guatemala for the last two years or so, has commented on the event: "With these people I've seen the church grow day by day. It is an unique experience, and when you get to the end you become emotional. I've seen people give everything, really everything, without keeping anything ". Poor people, that at the arrival of a Salesian missionary they expressed only one wish. "When I arrived I wanted to promote more socially-orientated interventions, but people told me: the only thing we ask you is to help with the construction of a church."

On December 21st, 2012, a new era for the village San Giacinto has begun.

Published 28/12/2012