The Medical Missionaries of Mary’s newest mission is in the city of Feira da Santana in north-east Brazil. Sisters Siobhán Corkery, Ursula Cott, and Sheila Linehan are the Irish sisters involved. They are helped by local lay missionaries Sirlane Santo Silva and Ligeane Cardoso dos Santos.
The city known known as Feira de Santana lies on the main north-south highway that runs through the north-eastern States of Brazil. It has become home to the latest mission of the Medical Missionaries of Mary.
Back in the middle of the 18th century, when estate owners built a small chapel dedicated to Santa Anna, it became an important gathering place. Towards the end of that century a market developed, giving the place the name Feira de Santana. With a brisk business in cattle trading in 1833 it became a municipality, and was created a city in 1873.
Nicknamed Princesa do Sertdo – the Princess of the Backlands – today this is the second largest city in the State of Bahia with a busy commercial life. Some well-known multinational corporations are located there. You can also find all the social problems of a city where poverty is plentiful.
Our newest mission lies just half-way between two existing MMM missions – one in the city of Salvador, the State Capital of Bahia. the other in the small town of Capim Grosso, a two-hour journey westwards from Feira de Santana.
Cork-born Sister Ursula Cott has been in Brazil for 25 years. She initiated this new venture in collaboration with two lay missionaries from Capim Grosso – Ligeane Cardoso dos Santos and Sirlane Santos Silva. Sister Siobhan Corkery, the member of our Central Team with responsibility for the Americas, also has her base at this new mission when she is not travelling elsewhere.
The members of the new community are already out and about among the people, engaged in a survey of the critical needs and issues and how they can help in addressing some of these. Sister Ursula is working in the field of HIV/AIDS, integrating this in partnership with the Health Care segment of the Pastoral Plan of the Diocese. Each year in the basic Christian communities all over Brazil the time of Lent is devoted to a particular campaign of prayer, reflection and action for social change. This year’s theme – Our Life and Mission on this Earth –centered on the problems of the Amazon. Its people are suffering and its role in the earth’s whole ecological system is critical.
Between 1950 and 2005 the population of Amazonia grew by 518%, far above Brazil’s national growth rate of 255%. Today, more than 70% of the people of the region live in urban areas where housing and the infrastructure are far below the requirements of human dignity. Pope Benedict wrote a special message marking the importance of this initiative. He drew attention to the plight of the peoples of the Amazon region. He said ‘defending the life and livelihood of the region’s people includes the defence of the environment. This vast territory constitutes a common patrimony that requires special attention on the part of the Church. The problem is human, socio-political, economic and ecological.’
Later this year the Vatican, under the auspices of Cardinal Martino’s Council for Justice and Peace and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, will hold its first summit on climate change. As the public in general become more concerned with the effects of global warming, the moral aspects of the misuse of Earth’s resources are becoming increasingly important.
See www.mmmworldwide.org This article first appeared in Supplement to Healing and Development (Easter 2007), a publication of the Medical Missionaries of Mary.
