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Jamaican priest serves homeland and all of Caribbean |
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By The Catholic Spirit
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Wednesday, 07 October 2009 |
 Father Donald Chambers
Father Donald Chambers, 45, grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, and studied at St. Michael’s Seminary in Kingston. He did summer pastoral work in the islands of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Martinique. After completing studies at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., he was ordained to the priesthood in 1992. He worked six years as a parish priest in Kingston before teaching at St. John Vianney and the Martyrs of Uganda regional seminary. He was called by the bishop who ordained him to missionary work and completed doctoral studies at the Gregorian University in Rome, researching and writing on missiology in the Caribbean context.
Why did you choose to become a missionary priest?
I would not say that I chose it, but rather it chose me. From the days
of seminary, my formators saw and felt that I needed to be challenged
more, and thus I was assigned to unfamiliar, uncomfortable and
difficult socio-economic situations as existed in Haiti. Through this
decision, they did not realize that they were forming me into a
missionary priest.
A
child stands near his family home destroyed by Hurricane Ivan outside
Kingston, Jamaica, in 2004. Climate change has been blamed for creating
more violent storms across the Caribbean. CNS photo from Reuters
What are you doing in your missionary work now?
Presently, I am the regional director of the Pontifical Mission
Societies of the Antilles. This ministry requires traveling extensively
to 21 dioceses stretching over 30 islands and countries from Guyana,
Suriname and French Guyana in the south (on the South American
continent) to Bermuda and Bahamas in the north and Belize in the west.
I visit projects such as orphanages, schools, chapels and feeding
programs, some of which are located deep in the jungle where it takes
days to arrive by river, sea and/or, land.
Why does this work make a difference — what does it mean to be a missionary in your part of the world?
When you see the bright eyes of a poor child or the smile of someone
who is benefitting from PMS’s sponsorship of a breakfast program or
assistance in funding a project, I realize that missionaries enkindle
hope that is often buried under socio-economic situations.
What is your greatest challenge in being a missionary there?
The greatest challenge is discovering, adapting and adjusting to the
rawness of human suffering and pain, especially in children and to
embrace human suffering, especially those caused by social injustice,
prejudices and indifference.
I understand that climate change is affecting the people you serve, tell me about that specific challenge.
The specific challenge is the occurrence of frequent hurricanes in the
Caribbean. In the last five years, the Caribbean has been hit by five
hurricanes, and they have been getting even more powerful. When you
live on an island, there is nowhere to escape and seek refuge. The
challenge is the resilience to rebuild property — housing, agriculture
and infrastructure every time a hurricane hits the region. So there is
always an uneasy preoccupation during the hurricane season
What is the state of the church in your diocese?
The church in the Caribbean is vibrant, visible and vocal. The
liturgical celebrations are alive, participatory, filled with music and
dance. The church is involved in many human development ministries such
as education, orphanages, skills training for young people, homes for
the mentally ill, HIV-AIDS programs, women conptemplating abortion,
etc. The Catholic population in the region ranges as low as 4 percent
in Jamaica to as high as 90 percent in countries such as Martinique and
St. Lucia.
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