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Thursday, March 28, 2024

New Venezuelan bishop makes first visit to archdiocese

Bishop Helizandro Terán Bermúdez, right, processes with Archbishop Bernard Hebda at the end of the transitional deacon ordination Mass May 12 at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit

Eight months into his episcopate, Bishop Helizandro Terán Bermúdez of Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, got a sense of the 48-year partnership with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis when he visited the Twin Cities for the first time in mid-May.

With Father Greg Schaffer, pastor of Jesucristo Resucitado, the archdiocese’s mission parish in San Felix, Venezuela, he met with Archbishop Bernard Hebda to renew the agreement between the dioceses that involves sending local priests to serve at Jesucristo Resucitado. The Diocese of Ciudad Guayana, where the parish is located, has 11 seminarians. Speaking through a translator, Bishop Bermúdez said he hopes to have the opportunity to send seminarians to the St. Paul Seminary to study, and also to exchange priests and professors.

Father John Floeder, an instructor and the dean of seminarians at the St. Paul Seminary, is teaching two courses at Good Shepherd Seminary in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, until June. Father Schaffer, an archdiocesan priest, said Father Floeder lives in Jesucristo Resucitado’s rectory on the weekends and helps with Masses. Another archdiocesan priest, Father James Peterson, is completing a three-year assignment at the parish.

Before Bishop Bermúdez was appointed last July to lead the Diocese of Ciudad Guayana, Father Schaffer had served as its administrator from January 2017 until Bishop Bermúdez was ordained in September.

Bishop Bermúdez said he’s grateful for local Catholics’ generosity through the partnership.

“Seeing everything that my predecessors have done, along with the priests in Minnesota, I can only be thankful,” he said.

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Noting Venezuela’s economic crisis, which stems from oil dependency, debt and government corruption, Bishop Bermúdez said everyone is affected, but especially the poor. People are dying because they don’t have money for medicine, and hospitals don’t care for patients who cannot pay, he explained. More and more, priests and religious sisters are struggling, too, because the parishes cannot support them. Compounding the problems are high inflation — the country’s minimum wage is lower than the price of basic goods — and government control of what comes into the country from any source.

And unfortunately, he added, even though people are struggling, many continue to believe the socialist government will eventually fulfill its promises. Recently, thousands of Venezuelans — mostly young adults, including Catholics in his diocese — have left the country seeking better lives, he said.

Living conditions are bleak, Bishop Bermúdez said, but aid from Caritas Internationalis, a Church relief organization, includes food and medical care. To alleviate the food shortage, after Sunday Mass each week, people contribute what they’re able for a “stone soup” meal at some parishes. During the week, hundreds of people come to Jesucristo Resucitado’s dining hall for food.

“Helping the poor isn’t something that you just do,” Bishop Bermúdez said, “but when we help and support the poor, we are encountering Jesus Christ himself.”

Bishop Bermúdez continues to seek Catholics’ prayers and “spiritual sacrifices,” because “What prayer can do, [material goods] cannot.”

At Holy Spirit Catholic School in St. Paul May 14, students gave Father Schaffer donations of hygiene items and school supplies that they had collected for a week, and Father Schaffer gave a presentation about the poor living conditions in Venezuela. In a follow-up email to The Catholic Spirit, Father Schaffer said one of the bishop’s suitcases was broken into at the airport in Venezuela, and some of the donations were stolen. But in all, they received 12 boxes of donations.

Bishop Bermúdez and Father Schaffer also visited Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul and attended the transitional deacon ordination May 12 at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. The bishop also celebrated Mass at Sacred Heart in St. Paul.

 


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