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FROM MOYVANE TO THE AMAZON BASIN
FROM MOYVANE TO THE AMAZON BASIN: THE STORY OF BISHOP COLLINS CSsR
Bishop Collins
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IN AN INTERVIEW FOR REALITY, BRAZILIAN HISTORIAN LUCIENE RIBEIRO DESCRIBES THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF KERRY-BORN REDEMPTORUST BISHOP JAMES COLLINS
Luciene autographing her book at the launch Luciene at lunch with Irish Ambassador to Brazil, Mr. Sean Hoy
INTERVIEW BY ANNE STAUNTON AND PAT O’SULLIVAN
Luciene Ribeiro grew up on a farm about 250 kilometres from Pedro Afonso, a parish served by Redemptorists since establishing their mission in Brazil in 1960. The farm was the last outpost on one of annual mule-back journeys the missionaries made to the vast hinterland of their parish. Luciene later became Diocesan Secretary and worked with Bishop Collins for five years. Recently, she wrote a Master’s dissertation in the post-graduate History of Amazonian Peoples Programme at the University of Tocantins, entitled An historical analysis of the Episcopacy of Bishop Collins in the North of Goias (1960-1999). She talks of her gratitude to the Redemptorists and Bishop Collins’ family for providing access to sources in places as far-flung as Moyvane, Co Kerry and Fortaleza, Brazil.
Anne Staunton and Pat O’Sullivan, who worked in Bishop Collins’ diocese, interviewed Luciene.
Collins homestead in Moyvane Bishop Collins with his sister and brother Church in Pedro Afonso
Tell us about Bishop Collins’ life before his arrival in Brazil.
The first Irish Redemptorists, Frs James Collins, Sean Myers, Michael Kirwan, and Jim McGrath, arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 1960. The Redemptorists had been invited by Dom Alano du Noday, the Frenchborn bishop of a vast region on the edge of the Amazon basin, with a backup letter from Dom Helder Camara, Secretary General of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference.
Fr Collins was leader of the new mission. He was born in February 1921 in Moyvane, Co. Kerry, youngest son of Michael and Catherine Collins. Sadly, James’ mother died in childbirth when he was one year old. Two of the eight Collins children became priests, and one became a religious sister. James attended two primary schools, St Michael’s in Moyvane and the CBS in Listowel. As a 12-year-old, he went to the Redemptorist Minor Seminary in Limerick, where he completed his secondary education.
On 3 September 1944, aged 23, he was ordained priest, after which he spent 18 months working on the Redemptorist Record. From 1947 to 1960, he was part of the Redemptorist mission to the Philippines.
He was then recalled to Ireland to lead the Redemptorist’s new mission to Brazil, where he remained for 39 years. In 1999, having retired as bishop, health reasons forced him to return to Ireland, where he died on 4 October 2002.
Describe life in the Brazilian mission in the early days.
In August 1960, the four missionaries arrived in Pedro Afonso, where F. Collins was appointed parish priest. Their routine initially followed the traditional monastic pattern, waking at 5 am, meditation in the parish church, followed by individual celebration of the Latin Mass. Afterwards, they did their parish work and studied Portuguese.
According to the 1960 census, their parish covered an area of 37,000 kilometres – about half the size of Ireland - with a population of 34,279 or one inhabitant per square kilometre. Eighty-five percent of the population lived in the sprawling countryside. As they were far from Brazil’s political turmoil in the early sixties, the missionaries’ lives were largely unmarked by the intense polarisation between the political left and right, which eventually led to the 1964 military coup. One memorable story of that time about Fr Collins and the military coup was a telegram he sent to the communities to “tóg an t-airgead amach, tá an banc briste,” as word spread of the currency’s collapse.
The pastoral praxis of the time was to celebrate Mass and hear confessions in the towns and villages on Sundays and feast days and visit the rural areas once a year in what was known as a ‘desobriga’ or helping the faithful fulfil their obligation to confess once a year. They travelled on horseback or mules to get to know their parish.
After listening to the people’s expectations, they decided to increase the intake of students at the local secondary school in Pedro Afonso. Fr Joe Hanrahan joined the mission as college headmaster and teacher. An agricultural college was also built in the parish in partnership with the state government. It later gained the status of a State Agricultural College and is now known as the Pedro Afonso Advanced Campus of the Institute of Technology, offering degrees in Agronomy.
Fr Collins was keen on living in a city with greater ease of communication with Ireland and where Redemptorist vocations could be fostered, so the vice provincial headquarters moved to Fortaleza in north-eastern Brazil, then considered the “breadbasket of religious vocations.” The Vice Province of Fortaleza was founded with Fr Collins as its first vice provincial.
When was Fr Collins ordained bishop, and what were his priorities?
While still vice provincial, he was nominated Bishop of the Prelacy of Miracema by Pope Paul VI in October 1966. In his inaugural sermon, he indicated that he planned to work to “promote a church in the image of Vatican II and put himself at the service of the people of the prelacy.” He already knew the region and was conscious of the problems it faced, so he pledged to strive for the spiritual and material welfare of its people.
The new Prelacy of Miracema had been part of the extensive Diocese of Porto Nacional. Three Brazilian diocesan priests opted to remain in this new prelacy. The Redemptorist parish of Pedro Afonso, with four priests, was also located within it, and there were two congregations of religious sisters.
That year three more Irish Redemptorists, including Br Paschal Doherty, arrived in Brazil. The following year, Br Paschal and Fr Sean Lawlor were appointed to the new prelacy to collaborate directly with Bishop Collins. Initially, they lived at the parish house, with few creature comforts as the region had no electricity, running water, or paved roads.
With the enormous pastoral challenge now facing him, Bishop Collins decided to try to expand his team. He set about inviting Irish diocesan priests to join his prelacy. He also wrote to superiors of religious congregations throughout Brazil, requesting priests and sisters to help in health, education, and pastoral care.
The presence of two indigenous tribes, the Xerente and the Krahô, presented a challenge in developing “indigenous pastoral care.” From 1970 onwards, two religious and some lay volunteers made up the Indigenous Pastoral team, with Sr Silvia ministering to the Xerente reservation and Fr Valber, a Brazilian Redemptorist, living with the Krahô. They reported to the annual diocesan assembly and presented the case for defending indigenous culture and the right of the indigenous to their ancestral lands. Other pastoral agents, including Bishop Collins, visited the reservations on special indigenous festive days.
He also began to think about formation for priests, seminarians, sisters, and laity. The bishop’s house, the Centre for Leadership Formation (CTL), churches, parish houses, and community centres were built through grant aid from German and Irish funding agencies and with the knowledge and skills of Br Paschal. As regards Br Paschal’s role, Bishop Collins later wrote: “When Br Paschal began with ‘If I were you Dom Jaime, I’d…,’ I would sit up and listen, because it was always sound advice.”
As the military regime’s repression intensified in the early seventies, the Brazilian bishops took a more courageous stand against it. One such event in Bishop Collins’ diocese illustrates the extreme violence and the church’s response. During a football game in Guarai, soldiers shot dead a spectator they suspected of participating in the Cuban-style Araguaia guerrilla war in a neighbouring diocese. Bishop Collins wrote a letter denouncing the atrocity, which became national news.
Lining up for food at a CEBs Assembly
A group meeting at a CEBs Assembly
What was the contribution of religious sisters to his diocese?
In the Prelacy of Miracema, religious sisters were protagonists in implementing the Vatican II’s decisions at a time when patriarchy was the order of the day. Sisters ran parishes with liturgy, catechesis, baptism and marriage preparation teams, bible groups, and Basic Christian Communities, and celebrated the Sunday Liturgy of the Word with communion. They took over parishes based on Canon Law 1112, which states that “where there is a lack of priests and deacons, the diocesan bishop … can delegate lay people to preside at marriages.” On Holy Thursdays, parishes run by sisters received the Holy Oils just like the priest-led parishes. When asked about sisters administering the Sacrament of the Sick, Bishop Collins replied: “You have the oils!” The sisters took him at his word and were able to bring the comfort of the Sacrament of the Sick to many parishioners.
In 1981, the prelacy was elevated to the status of diocese. By 1983, it had six diocesan priests, four Redemptorists, and six congregations of sisters, and consisted of 15 parishes, eight run by priests and seven by sisters. Before sisters were appointed as extraordinary ministers, all parishes depended on the priests’ visits to administer the sacraments. For marriages, they had to travel long distances to a priestrun parish, incurring great expense. The new arrangement facilitated the people’s lives, brought the church closer to them, and was readily accepted by the faithful, who felt that the feminine touch considerably enhanced their wedding celebrations.
Sisters in charge of parishes have always affirmed that their experience was a very significant moment in their lives as they felt they were making an important contribution to the life of the diocese. Most were from the south and southeast of Brazil. The one exception were the St Louis Sisters from California and Ireland, who ran two of the parishes.
Name some highlights of Bishop Collins’ time as bishop.
Basic Christian Communities (BCC) were a landmark in the history of the Catholic Church in Brazil, as they were a space for the participation of the poor. Through them, poor lay people acquired a new sense of self and mission and assumed their role as Christians in the struggle for common interests, such as health, education, and political representation. BCCs provided a space for the poor to grow as a community empowered by their faith to transform unjust political and social structures. In 1979, the Latin American Bishops’ Conference in Puebla underlined God’s preferential option for the poor and insisted that the BCCs helped the church discover ‘the evangelising potential of the poor.’
In Miracema, from 1975 onwards, a small BCC team helped organise the annual assembly of these communities, always attended by Bishop Collins. The Redemptorist diocesan missionary team also visited these communities throughout the diocese and helped to animate and encourage them.
While sectors of the church had supported the 1964 military coup, within nine years, the attitude had changed. Nineteen bishops in northeastern Brazil and six in the Amazonian region denounced the military dictatorship as acting contrary to the church’s social teaching. In the early seventies, the state of Goias handed over the title deeds to huge tracts of land, occupied for generations by squatter farmers, to powerful politicians and outside land grabbers. When these land ‘owners’ arrived to evict those living on the land, using violence when they met resistance, the cry of the poor inevitably provoked a response from the church. A Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) team was formed in each diocese, including Miracema, which tried to respond to evictions with solidarity and legal support.
Bishop Collins was aware of the power of the people and always tried to collect signatures for letters to draw attention to their plight. One example was a letter signed by Bishop Collins and hundreds of others
Bishop Collins and Pat O’Sullivan with a squatter Bishop Collins with Pat O Sullivan at a court hearing
in 1985, denouncing: i) the expulsion of 37 tenants from their land in Colmeia and two beaten by police and forced to renounce their right to their land, and 35 imprisoned by a force of 100 police; ii) the invasion by a local rancher and the police of a chapel in Lizarda when people had gathered for prayer. They had come from the squatters’ houses, picked up all their meagre belongings, and then deposited them at the chapel door; iii) conflicts in Miracema, where tension was high because of evictions and the presence of armed hitmen.
On the feast of Corpus Christi 1987, in the parish run by Fr Martin Murray, C.Ss.R., Bishop Collins called for land reform and protection against land grabbers. Later he was accused of backing Fr Martin and Frei Henrique of the CPT in their support for squatters who supposedly had ‘invaded private land.’ The bishop challenged these lies, and in 1988 with growing publicity and severe pressure from the National Bishops’ Conference, the Supreme Court ordered the cancelation of the false land titles in favour of the squatters. This was one of the few victories the people of that region were able to celebrate.
The CPT also argued for the formation of Rural Workers’ Unions and Associations of Small Landholders in each municipality. Many of these were formed and live on today, helping organise farmers and squatters. The associations established cooperatives to help improve members living conditions.
Jose Edgar, a former director of the Agricultural College, saw Bishop Collins as “a missionary who loved action. He didn’t just talk; he practiced what he preached. He was obsessed with getting things done.” He supported the CEBs as a new way of being church. In defending smallholders, he revealed his own origins as a small farmer and felt deeply the injustices heaped upon them by the state and judicial system. Above all, he was committed to the formation of his pastoral agents and, in his later years, could see the fruits of his labours in the fine team of highly dedicated priests, sisters, and laity.
GRATITUDE TO REDEMPTORISTS
On the occasion of their 25 years of mission in his diocese, Bishop Collins paid tribute to his Redemptorist confreres:
“It was a very happy experience. They very naturally accepted the dimension of co-responsibility and collaborated in everything aimed at the good of the people of God and the organisation of the diocese. They were pioneers in listening to God’s call in the formation of Basic Christian Communities and the organisation of the CPT in rural areas, and the pastoral care of marginalised women in urban areas. The Diocese of Miracema owes much to the generous and dedicated collaboration of the Redemptorists.”
