Brazilians in Richmond area seek Portuguese-speaking priest

St. Mary's Catholic Church

Isabel Coelho, who came to western Henrico County from Brazil two years ago, understands some English, but not enough to be fulfilled spiritually at Sunday Mass.

The 49-year-old catechist for a group of Brazilian parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church said she needs a Portuguese-speaking priest.

"We're immigrants, and we really need someone who can give us spiritual guidance, someone to talk with about family problems," the housekeeper said in Portuguese on a recent Sunday evening after leading a rosary in lieu of Mass.

The Brazilian parishioners at St. Mary's have been receiving Mass in Portuguese from out-of-state priests once or twice a month for the past five years. The estimated 70 regular churchgoers, however, have been trying to get the Diocese of Richmond to hire a Portuguese-speaking priest for the parish, but it hasn't happened yet.

"About 80 percent of the congregation doesn't speak English very well," said Sandro Beraldo, president of the Brazilian group. "They're so busy working. When they [come] to Mass . . . they feel so empty because they don't feel they understand exactly what is being said."

The diversity of the Catholic population is positive for the church, but it also challenges the diocese to meet the needs of different ethnic and racial groups, said Monsignor Mark Richard Lane, vicar of clergy for the Richmond diocese.

International priests make up about 25 percent of the clergy in the diocese, he said. In the past five years, 23 priests have been brought in from Africa, India, Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines and Colombia, he said.

"We have a large Vietnamese community, but we have Vietnamese priests," he said. "We have Korean communities; they have Korean priests."

The Spanish-speaking community has exploded in size, too, and about two dozen churches offer Mass in Spanish. The diocese is seeking to bring in more priests from Latin America to serve more churches. Lane said he is working with the director of the diocese's Office of the Hispanic Apostolate, Erik Manuel Giblin, in writing letters to bishops in Latin America asking them if they can spare priests.

And then there are other groups, such as the Brazilians, who want Portuguese-speaking priests.

Lane said the diocese has to consider a number of things to bring in an international priest, including his English skills, the number of people in a congregation, the ability of the parish to pay the priest's salary, and benefits and housing.

The Brazilian group at St. Mary's is paying about $400 in airfare and a $100 stipend to Father Amarilho Checon, a priest in his mid-80s from New York, to come to celebrate Mass once a month. He's been coming for the past five years. They are also paying transportation for another priest from Washington once a month.

Sometimes Father Wayne L. Ball from St. John's Catholic Church in Highland Springs, who speaks Spanish and Portuguese, fills in.

Recently, the Brazilian group invited a priest, Valter Branbao, from Brazil for a visit. He stayed a month with two families and celebrated Mass every Sunday, Beraldo said. He also met with Lane.

"Everybody [was] so happy with him," Beraldo said. "We really didn't want [him] to go back. We're so excited that he could come back next year."

There is a possibility that the diocese will bring in Branbao, but he doesn't know when, Lane said.

"He needs to work on his English," he said. "If he could speak English better, we could allow him to minister at the Brazilian community and in some of our English-speaking parishes. That takes care of some of the cost factor."

But to bring in someone who would be learning English and a new culture and ministering at the same time is asking a lot from the diocese, Lane said.

"Our expectation is that when these men come, that with in a brief period of time they can be ministering," he said.

Beraldo said Branbao is taking English classes three times a week in Brazil.

He's certain attendance would increase to a couple of hundred with a Portuguese-speaking priest in the parish. It would fill a void that is pushing some Brazilians to non-Catholic churches in the area with pastors who speak their language, Beraldo said.

"If we have a Portuguese Mass every Sunday, people wouldn't wonder, 'Oh, today they have Mass in Portuguese or no?'" he said. "They [would know that] every weekend they have a place to go."

Contact Juan Antonio Lizama at (804) 649-6513 or .