ather Carl Chudy's call to be a missionary priest came from God, but the call to be a Xaverian Missionary priest came from a Catholic Digest ad.
The idea of becoming a priest first occurred to him during his time as a jet mechanic serving with the Air National Guard, he said during a recent interview at his order's U.S. provincial house on Helene Court here [in Wayne, NJ].
Home on a three-month leave from the Philippines, where he has served since 1994, Father Chudy said he had joined the Guard in 1975 after he was graduated from high school, and for quite a while "was not particularly close to the Church or to God," despite having grown up in what he recalled as a "very religious" and observant Catholic family. "Then I started thinking about becoming a missionary, although I didn't really know what was involved in that."
His search for information eventually came down to a choice between the Columban Fathers and the Xaverians, the latter having spiked his interest in a vocation recruitment ad in the Catholic Digest, Father Chudy recalled with a grin. As far as the Xaverians were concerned, it pays to advertise.
"I entered our seminary in Milwaukee in 1977, then I had to finish college. I studied theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and as part of our order's training I worked for two years with Father Victor Bongiovanni, one of our priests serving in Sierra Leone. Then I came back and finished theology." He was ordained in 1986 in his parents' parish, Corpus Christi in Willingboro, NJ by then-Bishop John C. Reiss of Trenton. After ordination, he recalled, he was stationed for eight years, serving in Milwaukee and Chicago in formation and vocation work and on justice issues with youth.
Assignment to the Philippines
Especially satisfying to him during that time, Father Chudy said, was his work with "mission animation” programs on college campuses and "collaboration with other congregations." "After that I was supposed to go to Bangladesh," he said, explaining that changing circumstances there brought about the assignment change from his superiors that took him to the Philippines, a country that is almost 90 percent "nominally" Catholic, but only 20-30 percent "practicing."
The six-foot-plus missionary chuckled in agreement that his height has made him stand out in the population he serves, but said it has not been a problem in his dealings with Filipinos.
Harder at first, he confessed, was his ignorance of Tagalog, the "difficult language" that is one of the two "official" languages in a country that has more than 80 different local languages. He has since learned Tagalog, he said, and it has also helped that the other "official" language is English.
His job description covers his position as Superior Delegate of the 11 Xaverian priests "from nine different countries" serving with him in the Philippines, as well as the 19 seminarians studying there. There is also his parish work and vocation formation work with Filipino students. "The Archdiocese of Manila just created five new dioceses," Father Chudy explained; "and our congregation works in two of those."
His parish is St. Francis Xavier Parish in Novaliches, not far from Manila. It's an urban parish, which he smilingly insisted was "medium sized" despite an enrollment of 70,000, made up mostly of "landless poor" and "squatters." There is also a parish school "up to the sixth grade," staffed by local people. "One of the major problems for the community we serve is finding work." “These are skilled people, eager to work, but there are just no jobs,” Father Chudy mourned deploring the too familiar gap between what he called “stark poverty" and "stark riches" that exists in the Philippines as in other Third World countries.
Helping people change their lives
Interestingly, he said he feels no need to carry medicines or other supplies on his 22-hour flight back to his mission on July 10. "Manila is major metropolitan city, where you can buy anything you can buy anywhere else and buy it a lot cheaper than here,” he said. A huge problem, "a scourge to the families of the poor," is a drug called "shebu," he said, "a low-grade cocaine that is cheap and available all over Asia." "It is a way for a lot of poor people to escape, to relieve themselves of the desperate burdens of their lives, the poverty," said Father Chudy, citing this as among "the many factors" involved in the drug situation.
"Things do change," he insisted, however, when asked how he and other missionaries cope with what seems like the endlessly frustrating lack of improvement or progress in the lives of those they serve, despite their best efforts. "It is important for us to remember and understand and always have a sense that we are not responsible for making things change. They themselves are. We are foreigners and we are only there to empower them," he said firmly. "Many times we can't give them the support they need and, yes, that is frustrating."
Another thing to be dealt with in empowering Filipinos, it was noted, is the "colonial mentality – a sense of not being as good as the "others" who came to their country – that continues to affect their sense of identity. "First it was Spain, then it was the U.S. and then for a while it was Japan." "On the bright side," he said, "the Filipinos are very good at enduring hardship and hard times."
"But they are also a celebratory community. They find many, many opportunities for celebration, much of them centered around the feasts of the Church. They use the analogy for themselves of a slim bamboo plant that sways in the breeze but does not break, while a huge tree can be split or will fall in the wind." "They are a deeply celebratory, strong, enduring people," said Father Chudy, but he noted a bit sadly that there is some "fraying at the edges" of that endurance, with "more suicides now than ever before."
An ongoing problem for the country, he explained, have been various warring guerilla factions involving "on the whole, terrorists" fighting for their particular causes. In the south, said Father Chudy, these are "mainly Muslims" in the Bagsa Moro Muslim community. They have been fighting for autonomy from more than 30 years, he said. There is also a splinter group, "more radical, trained by al-Qaida," and the communist New People's Army, "very much a terrorist group who sometimes come to us for food or for help for their wounded." With the heightened U.S. focus on combating terror everywhere, said Father Chudy, "The Philippines have gotten a lot more money from President Bush lately. The country has been given a more elevated status by the US."
An American, and much more
Another risk factor in the country, he said, with Americans especially targeted, is what he called a "kidnapping industry that is more about money-making than politics." "We don't take any precautions and it drives me crazy," he said, noting that the U.S. Embassy only recently put out another warning to Americans. "I'm not frightened," Father Chudy said. "But I do think about it and try to be careful and take precautions." Worrying "a lot about me," he admitted, is his family – including his parents, his younger brother and three younger sisters.
He is a native of Philadelphia, but grew up mostly in New Jersey, including some years in Wayne, Father Chudy said, reporting that "we moved around a lot because my father was an executive with the Woolworth Company." He went to Catholic schools "till about the fourth grade," he reported.
So what about the "culture shock" reported by many American missionaries when they come to their native country with its affluence and abundance so much in contrast to the conditions where they serve? Father Chudy confessed that some adjustment is required each time he comes home, but that it is always good to reconnect with his family and friends here as well as his fellow Xaverians.
As for feeling lonely when he returns to his mission, he explained that he misses his friends and family here, but that "email helps a lot." "The hardest part is being away from my family three years at a time, he said, "especially now that I'm at a point where my parents are getting older."
His feelings about being away from the country where he was born are different, however, he explained. He has "fond memories" of the American culture he grew up with, he said, and "I am an American and will always be very proud of that. But there is much more to my identity now than that."
Each time he comes home, he said, he realizes that he has changed, and because of that his relationships with people here have also changed. Among such changes are the fact that he now gets around by motorcycle "because it's cheaper," and the asthma he has developed because of the severe air pollution where he lives. More importantly, said Father Chudy, he feels a strong relationship to the Filipino community and thinks of himself as part of it. "And I enjoy Filipino culture. Among other things, the food is great."
(From "The Beacon", Newspaper of the Diocese of Paterson, NJ)