During the month of December, the General Assistant for Latin America, Father Alexander Lam, OSA, visited the Apostolic Vicariate of St. Augustine of Apurímac, Peru, for a renewal visitation.
Vast distances, single-lane roads, and breathtaking landscapes define the setting where the Augustinians work tirelessly to bring the Gospel, despite the many daily challenges they face.
Under the jurisdiction of the Province of Italy, the Augustinians of this vicariate in Peru remain steadfast in fulfilling their mission amid hardship and scarcity. “We have four houses where eight brothers are currently stationed. Some of them carry out their mission alone,” Father Lam shared with us from Rome.
The Augustinian Presence in Territories Stricken by Terrorism and Scarcity
In the mid-1960s, the Peruvian bishop of Abancay, Monsignor Alcides Mendoza Castro, requested the Order of St. Augustine to establish a mission in the department of Apurímac. After assessing the realities of the region's three highland provinces (Antabamba, Grau, and Cotabambas) Monsignor Mendoza, who was in Rome for the Second Vatican Council, presented his report and request to the Prior General of the Augustinians, Father Agostino Trapè, OSA. Following a preparatory visit, the first group of missionaries was dispatched to the newly erected Prelature of Chuquibambilla, established just months earlier by Pope Paul VI.
Initially, the religious in charge of this new pastoral initiative were its Apostolic Administrator, Father Lorenzo Miccheli, OSA, and the Vicar General, Father Ettore Salimbeni, OSA. After settling in Chuquibambilla, they soon went on to establish new parishes in Cotabambas and Antabamba.
After more than a decade of steady growth and expansion throughout the prelature, everything changed with the outbreak of terrorist violence in the early 1980s. One of the country's most notorious terrorist groups unleashed chaos across the southern highlands of Peru through guerrilla tactics and armed skirmishes. During this time, as Father Lam recounts, the Augustinians played a crucial role in these already isolated and economically and educationally deprived regions, “standing by the people in the midst of their suffering and the tyranny of those who wielded violence.”
The Vicariate Today
Today, the vicariate's main house is located in Cusco, where the Augustinians oversee a parish and the "Lucia Vannucci Maiani" polyclinic, a project run by the Apurímac ONLUS Association, which provides medical assistance to the poor of the Chuquibambilla prelature and the outskirts of Cusco.
In the interior, there are several mission houses in Tambobamba and Chuquibambilla, as well as a nursing home in Cotabambas.
“Our friars in Peru, from what I have gathered in speaking with them, are striving to reorganize in order to properly serve all the faithful and ensure that no one is left ‘without a community as a place of recourse.’ In the highlands alone, Augustinian priests minister to between 30 and 40 communities, with all the logistical and pastoral challenges that entails.
“We have a newly professed brother with simple vows, but it is still not enough given the magnitude of the work to be done. This vicariate, young in terms of its current average age, and its friars deserve recognition for the remarkable effort they are making.”
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