The Catholic Church and Romo Bernhard

View from the priest`s garden

The Church
Jerebu’u has been a Catholic area, with a church, for less than 60 years. The church in Jerebu’u seems to be an important and well established organization in the society.

As we got to experience, the Sunday Mass is well attended. The Sunday we were there, the Mass would normally have taken place in another church in the parish, but still it was around 300 people attending. Normally the number is much greater, 1000- 2000 attending Mass. People walk for hours to get to church, and the priest often waits to begin the Mass so that most of the people will be able to reach the church.

Apart from Sunday Mass, there is every morning a service in the church where the junior high school students, the Pastor and the nun among others attend. In addition, all regular Catholic ceremonies are followed. The Catholic religion means a lot in every day and part of their life.

Romo Bernhard
The pastor of the Jerebu’u parish, Romo Bernhard, is very well liked and everywhere he goes all the people he meets greet him sincerely. It was easy to see who the centre of attention was when he came with us to remote villages. The Pastor seemed very engaged in the local society.

In addition to good contact with the villagers, it seemed to be a functioning collaboration between the church, the bureaucratic leaders and the traditional leaders. We left with the impression that development was a true interest of the Pastor.

The Pastor focused on development from different angles:

1. When he visited the villagers, he would tell in gospel about how they should live and how to behave to improve their lives. He explained it as giving people structure in their daily lives.

2. The collect money, the money the church gets from collecting from the people is redistributed, and comes back to them in the way of social benefits.The church is dependent on collecting from the people to run their projects, such as maintaining the church organization, the ZU/ CU Banking, the organization of PSE, the kindergartens and the schools.

3. Collaboration between the Church, the bureaucratic leaders and thetraditional leaders.

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