Maracaibo, Venezuela, Aug 22, 2018 / 12:23 am (ACI Prensa).- When Juan Pablo Hernandez returns to his home in the Archdiocese of Maracaibo, Venezuela next year, he will face a country suffering from a years-long economic crisis. But the 23-year-old seminarian is not afraid.
“I’m happy to go back home and to be able to help the people,” said Hernandez, who is currently studying in Spain.
“Giving them hope is essential. I want to bring them the joy and hope of Jesus Christ so that they can keep their heads above water,” he told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency.
Venezuela is in the midst of an ongoing economic crisis, as poor economic policies, including strict price controls, coupled with high inflation rates, have resulted in a severe lack of basic necessities such as toilet paper, milk, flour, diapers and medicines.
Added to shortages in food, healthcare supplies, and public services such as water and electricity are problems with personal safety, employment, the circulation and sale of cash, and insufficient public transport.
The city of Maracaibo, where Hernandez is from, has seen power outages lasting nearly three days, leaving food to spoil and the elderly to suffer in the summer heat.
The economic crisis has led 1.2 million refugees to flee Venezuela in the past two years, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“The Church is suffering from this whole precarious situation right along with the people of Venezuela,” Hernandez said. “The government is asphyxiating us bit-by-bit, they want the people to lose hope and settle for the destitution they are given.”
But despite the devastating situation, “trust in God and in the Church has grown” throughout the country, he said.
Many people who did not formerly attend Mass are now “looking for God in the midst of the precariousness,” he said, and to these people, “the Church always extends a hand.”
Additionally, the lack of material goods “brings out people’s generosity, and groups are formed to help children and the sick.”
Something very common is the “mercy cooking pot” which is organized in the parishes where “people bring what they have – not what’s left over, because no one has any food left over – and with what there is, they cook it up and distribute some 300 servings,” Hernandez said.
It was precisely the desire “to be close to God and to help the people” that drew the seminarian to consider a vocation to the priesthood.
Hernandez said he first heard a call to the priesthood at a friend’s ordination Mass. At the time, he was 19 years old.
“During the celebration of the ordination…I felt something burning inside and that thing stayed with me. I was truly amazed that there are those who are capable of leaving everything to give themselves to God,” he said.
“I didn’t understand what was in the hearts of these people that were leaving everything and answering ‘Here I am Lord, your will be done’,” he recalled.
Although the experience was powerful, Hernandez did not initially consider pursuing the same path for himself. At the time, he had a girlfriend and was studying electrical engineering.
“I didn’t want to leave everything for something I would have no control over,” he said.
But a few years later, Hernandez could not shake the feeling “that there was something more I was missing, something greater.”
One day during Mass at his local parish, the priest asked if someone could assist as an altar server. Although Hernandez was above the typical age of altar servers, he volunteered.
“I saw that it was my opportunity to be close to everything that so much drew my attention a few years prior,” he said. “To be so close to the altar, the consecration, the Lord…All that stirred up in me what I had experienced at the ordination of my friend.”
From then on, he became more deeply involved in the parish – teaching catechism, organizing retreats, and joining the pastor in visits to the sick.
“I became impassioned with the priestly life, with being close to God in order to help people…it was a great joy,” he said.
“It wasn’t a commitment or a burden, it was something that came from within and made me very happy.”
It has now been seven years since Hernandez decided to become a priest. He is currently taking his final course of Ecclesiastical Studies at the University of Navarre in Spain. Looking back at the past seven years – and ahead to a priestly vocation – he has no regrets.
“I don’t know how the Lord does it, but every year surprises me more, and always with something better,” he said. “If I had not responded to his call, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am now.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Another political stunt.
SOL,
I expect some people got inspired to participate in this for political reasons but still, good for the KC helping these folks at Christmas time.
I don’t like immigration used as a tool to gain political power & a larger constituency for Democrats either, but you know without it we’re going to be in the same kind of demographic implosion as Europe & Japan face. Look at the current US birth rates. Pretty dismal.
The strategy should be to attract honest, hardworking Christian folk from South of the border & not alienate them so that they run straight into the arms of liberal politicians who want to use them to overturn conservative states like TX.
I don’t believe liberal Democrats have the immigrants’ best interest-witness their campaign to abort migrant girls’ infants. But liberals claim to & they don’t publicly show the hostility that many of our conservatives do. We might could learn something from that.
Why not try the novel idea of increasing the native American birthrate? There are many valid reasons to declare an immigration moratorium and no good ones for continuing mass Third World immigration.
Tony,
Amen to your comments. And if demographic trends continue, the majority population will eventually be traditional Catholics, Amish, orthodox Jews, and others who bother to reproduce themselves. But that may take some time.
Mrscracker, the groups you list will be swamped by the dispararte (they are hardly all Latin American or Christian) Third World mob that is being ushered into this country by a treasonous elite. They will be united, temporarily, anyway, by their resentment of the country that was foolish enough to let them in. When the remnant middle class backbone of Americais finally vanquished, the war of all against all that is barely being suppressed today, will begin in earnest. May I ask if you at least oppose Muslim immigration into Western countries?
Mrscracker,
In an age of the ongoing collapse of industrial systems predicated upon cheap energy and easy access to resources, the problem of population implosion will eventually take care of itself, as those who are willing to surmount the hardship and reproduce will replace those who cannot.
The case for increasing the population through the reception of immigrants is one predicated upon infinite growth, which is not sustainable, and as you noted, aids the leftist revolutionaries. Immigrants are already alienated in so far as they have and seek to maintain a different identity and wishful thinking will not cause integration or their voluntary abandonment of their identity. And hostility by those being overwhelmed by them is a natural and just response. Violence is more likely than not if their numbers continue to increase. At this point the consequences are probably already in motion and very little can probably be done to prevent them. What can be done though is for Roman Catholics to preserve the credibility of their church and religion, but their bishops are ignorant of the dangers of the current situation and they are content to think the status quo can eventually favor their institution.
In continuing their current course Latin bishops will discredit themselves and their religion if and when there is a reaction to the status quo and the elites behind it.
Well stated, SOL. Based on their extreme leftist position on immigration alone, it is very hard for this practicing Catholic to regard the great majority of the Church hierarchy as being anything other than an enemy of my family, country and civilization.
SOL,
Thank you for your comments too.
Our plummeting fertility rates don’t foretell anything like infinite growth. More likely shrinking and aging. Without immigration that’s going to happen a whole lot sooner.
A smaller population isn’t the problem as much as an age imbalanced population. If you take a look at the demographic data and projections you see increasing numbers of elderly and fewer and fewer young people entering the workforce.
Birth rates are falling globally in all but a couple regions. One day we may wish we had more Christian immigrants to fill the empty places in our nation.
I don’t believe mass immigration is a good idea nor do I believe in open borders but Americans seem to have so little appreciation of their own culture that they can’t be bothered to create another generation to pass it down to.
The economic system and the decisions of the elites are based on the fantasy of infinite growth.
“but Americans seem to have so little appreciation of their own culture that they can’t be bothered to create another generation to pass it down to.”
I suspect this may be more true of blue urban areas than red rural areas, which have other difficulties.
See this link for more on infinite growth: https://psmag.com/.amp/magazine/fallacy-of-endless-growth
Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem to comply with the census. How many people were in the same boat and were there because of the census? The story of Mary and Joseph not finding a room at an inn could be a story of a community overwhelmed by there being more people than the community could handle at one time.
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The USA may be a rich powerful nation, but it does not have unlimited resources. There are only so many people that the USA can admit at one time while maintaining an orderly immigration process. A responsible host doesn’t invite more guests than the host can provide hospitality for. Illegal immigrants are gate-crashers. The mess at the Southern border is what happens when you have a large number of gate-crashers.
SOL,
Thank you very much for the link to that article.
I think that illustrates exactly what the misconceptions are about population. People are still basing their fears on theories from the 1970’s. It’s not 1972 anymore and things have changed dramatically.
Population implosion is what we need to be concerned about in the coming decades.
Though it’s certainly not a Catholic book and the author doesn’t hold our views on contraception, etc., I’d really recommend reading “Factfulness ” by Hans Rosling. Things really have changed globally and will continue to change. Not necessarily for the better, but not what was predicted in 1972 either.
God bless!