By Julie A. Miller
Catholic Herald

Modern missionaries still risk their lives

Editor's note: Each year the Society for the Propagation of the Faith sets aside one Sunday in October as World Mission Sunday. It is a day for Catholics worldwide to recommit themselves to the church's missionary activity through prayer and financial support. The following story offers a look at the dangers church missionaries face while spreading the Gospel around the world.

SUPERIOR -- Missionaries make many sacrifices and regularly face danger as they try to help the poor, work for social justice and spread the faith. Some give up their lives in the process.

In August 2000, a Mill Hill missionary, the cousin of a member of St. Patrick Parish in Hudson, was killed in Kenya. Fr. John Kaiser had worked for human rights and an end to government oppression in Kenya for 36 years before he was shot to death. Many believe he was killed because he spoke out against the government.

An Irish priest who was a member of the St. Columban Foreign Missionary Society was killed in the Philippines on Aug. 28 of this year. News reports said Fr. Rufus Halley was shot when he resisted kidnapping by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Fr. Gerry Wilmsen, a retired Columban, now lives on the Chippewa Flowage near New Post in a trailer he calls "St. Columban's in the Woods." Since his ordination in 1959 Wilmsen has spent almost all of his time in Asia -- 18 years in Korea and 11 in China.

Wilmsen combined religion with activism. "I was acting as a priest in Korea but also trying to destroy the government which was corrupt." He added, "Police would come to chat but it was really a warning to me. ... We were always under tension."

The people's fight for justice helped the church develop. "It was the only place you could meet and demonstrate, indirectly at least. ... Otherwise the police would come if people got together," Wilmsen said." He added that one group even held a fake wedding at the YMCA so they could gather and make their speeches.

Wilmsen went to China in September of 1989, just a few months after government troops brutally ended the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. He entered as a university English teacher, disguising the fact that he was a priest.

Each class had a thought monitor who reported back to the party secretary. The police told teachers they could not talk about religion, but Wilmsen found ways. He said, "I was always stirring the pot. I never got into trouble."

One potentially dangerous exploit was an ill-conceived plan to give some money to the Chinese bishop. "It was arranged that I would be holding American money wrapped in a Chinese newspaper -- wrapped up for the Chinese bishop. ... I was too afraid to do it and the plan was scrapped. I wouldn't make a good spy," Wilmsen said.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame, with teachers in 32 countries, also put themselves in danger. Sr. Betty Uchytil, a Superior native, said that four of her fellow Sisters, fearing violence since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, have left Pakistan. Uchytil herself had to leave Nepal in May after Maoist insurgents ordered the school in the tiny village of Bandipur to close.

Uchytil said the actions against schools began with extortion letters to administrators in both private and government schools that Maoists thought were not doing a good job.

The Maoists kept track of schools by stopping children and questioning them as they traveled back to their homes in distant valleys. Based on that information they would earmark a school or a teacher for discipline. In some places teachers were mutilated; in others they were tarred and feathered, Uchytil said.

"The stories about what they did were intimidating, so we always knew they meant business. But we were always told we were at one of the best schools in the country," Uchytil said. Villagers assured them that by giving scholarships to so many children and hiring so many local workers the school was doing what the Maoists wanted.

Ultimately Uchytil's school received a series of letters -- demands to close the school "for the reasons of stopping colonization, privatization and commercialization of education," Uchytil said. They were also ordered to join the revolution. The Sisters felt they had no choice but to close the school for the safety of the children. After the Sisters left, the Maoists took over the village. They bombed the police post and several people were injured.

Uchytil, now principal of St. Roman Parish School in Milwaukee, said, "I would love to go back (to Nepal). It's not an easy place to be but there is something so beautiful about the children and the people in the country that I would be willing to go back and continue education so the country could grow and change in the way the people want it to."

Maryknoll Sr. Bernice Kita also knows the dangers of mission work. Since 1970 she has spent most of her time in Guatemala, mainly in poor areas where indigenous people live.

Guatemala endured a 36-year civil war that ended in 1996. During that time church missionaries were often targeted by the military.

Although Guatemala is a Catholic country, teaching religion was considered a subversive act. She said, "People had to decide what to do and people decided to risk their lives to spread the good news of Jesus to the people."

The Bible was considered subversive because it taught that life is precious and that people have the right to human dignity, Kita said.

In Guatemala people were disappearing and torture was common. Bodies were left on roadsides as a warning.

Kita herself had some frightening experiences. One time she was helping a man who was in danger because he had been helping his people and had started a Catholic youth association. Kita said, "The scary part came when we came back from the city with (him and his) whole family in the car. ... Suddenly I saw a man ahead of me in the road. I thought it was someone who was drunk, so I stopped. It was a soldier with more behind him."

The soldiers questioned everyone in the car, but they did not ask the young man for his identification papers. He would have been shot if the soldiers had known who he was, said Kita.

In the 1980s churches were taken over by the army and used for torture centers. Kita was assigned to one parish where the church was damaged by an earthquake. Before the building could be repaired and used as a church again, workers had to dig up many bodies and the building had to be exorcised.

Even though the civil war ended in 1996, violence against church missionaries still exists. In an apparent car-jacking, a woman Religious was killed in Guatemala one year ago. Kita said many people think it wasn't a random crime but that the Sister was targeted because of her work. Kita left Guatemala three years ago and is now the liaison for the Maryknoll Sisters to Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Social Communications in New York.

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2001