As a young man in divinity school, Reinhold Speck had seen a documentary film depicting the work of Jesuit missionaries in the high mountain villages of the Muelos de Dios; the principal range that forms the spine of the continental plate bearing most of the southwestern hemisphere. On a political map, the brethren explained, the Muelos had been part of a once thriving empire that had fallen into ruin because of its decadent ways. They were now part of a concern that had been established by pan-American Saadamites in the last century. But Buena Salida was little more than a title on a contract with Spain.
As a nation, or even as an economic base, Buena Salida could not be admitted to exist at all. And so the people, according to the missionaries, were in dire need of Christian Charity.
For one hundred and thirty five years, the Jesuits had been trying to administer this relief effort. They sought out children who were dying of hunger and led them to prayer. Reinhold Speck had been stirred and his application to the mission board had caused great excitement. Speck was just the sort of man the Church most needed in its forward positions; he had a brain. A keen mental facility, they surmised, would be the strong right arm of Speck’s personal faith. They surmised.
The world that Speck found as he entered the Service brought him face to face with a whole different sort of reality than he’d known in cloister. His first post was in the depths of a decaying city.
On the morning of his first day there, some children brought him round to an apartment in an overcrowded public housing project. One of the children was sick. She had a high fever and gastral worms. Speck soon learned that the little girl had contracted the diseases from the decomposing corpse of her mother. The woman had died of whooping cough and no-one had bothered to do anything with her or for the child.
“Roseta,” as the missionaries soon christened the nameless child, simply hadn’t known what to do upon the death of her mother. She’d stayed in the house and waited by her mother’s side; no one knew how long. The other neighborhood children had noticed a smell while hunting for roaches. They found the little girl and ran to get help.
Day after day, Speck served as witness to the most gruesome of horrors. Poverty and disease were only the most frustrating of adversaries. What really infuriated the missionaries was the way in which the Salidan “government” regularly committed acts of unspeakable terrorism on the very people who needed help most.
In one such case, soldiers tied a man to the frame of his bed and carved all the skin from his face. He sat there weeping red tears from lidless eyes and wondering if anyone would ever come; wondering what they might possibly do for him if they did arrive. His eyes were just beginning to darken and dry when Brother Speck came through the door.
Speck prayed for strength and administered extreme unction. He crossed himself and asked to be forgiven. Then he picked up the bayonet that the soldiers had left and quieted the man’s misery. The blood stopped flowing and he felt the man’s body relax in his arms. Speck began to suspect that, in this mission field at least, the ordinary commandments didn’t necessarily apply.
All images public domain: The Missionary Visitor (1905).