Comboni Father Michael Barton embraces mission work in war-torn Sudan

Head catechist Damiasio Ding, left, and Lorenze Makatatu carry the cross during a Lenten procession at St. Theresa Parish in Nyamllel in southern Sudan last year. Lay catechists help Comboni Father Michael Barton, the parish’s pastor, teach the Catholic faith to people in the Diocese of Rumbek. Three Indonesian sisters who are members of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart order and lay teachers help Father Barton at four Comboni schools in Nyamllel. Students study English, Dinka, Swahili, Arabic, science, agriculture, geography, civics, history and religious education. (Submitted photo)

(Editor’s note: “Stewards Abroad” is an occasional series that reports on the missionary efforts of Catholics from the Archdiocese of Indianapolis throughout the world.)

By Mary Ann Wyand

Violence continues daily in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where United Nations officials estimate that more than 200,000 Sudanese people have been killed and at least 2.5 million displaced during four years of a bloody holy war waged by Muslim extremists.

On Oct. 11, the country’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended a 21-year civil war, was threatened when the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement withdrew cabinet members representing southern Sudan from participation in the central government.

Comboni Father Michael Barton, who grew up in St. Therese of the Infant Jesus Parish in Indianapolis, returned to Sudan in September following a home visit and mission trip to El Salvador last summer.

During an Aug. 7 interview at the archdiocesan Mission Office at the Archbishop O’Meara Catholic Center in Indianapolis, Father Barton talked calmly about the continuing violence in Sudan and enthusiastically about his mission work at St. Theresa Parish and four Comboni schools in Nyamllel in southern Sudan.

Catholics in central and southern Indiana are invited to pray for missionary priests, sisters, brothers and laity serving the Catholic Church throughout the world during the archdiocesan World Mission Sunday Mass at 2 p.m. on Oct. 21 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral,

1347 N. Meridian St., in Indianapolis. Msgr. Joseph F. Schaedel, vicar general and director of the Mission Office, is the principal celebrant for the Mass.

Father Barton and Father Alfred Loro Caesar, a diocesan priest and seminary rector in the Archdiocese of Juba, met with Sister Demetria Smith, a Missionary Sister of Our Lady of Africa and the archdiocesan mission educator, on Aug. 7 to discuss the Church’s tenuous situation in Sudan and ways that Catholics in central and southern Indiana can support their missionary work.

Father Barton has served in Sudan from 1978 until 1986 and from 1993 to the present so he understands the volatile political and religious conflicts that plague the impoverished East African country.

“The Church in Juba is serving the people in a very trying time,” Father Loro said of his home diocese. “Many people have been killed. The whole world knows about it. I think it is worse than the former [civil] war. … We have so many orphans that we have baptized.”

Father Loro said he believes the United Nations’ statistics on the number of people who have been killed, displaced or died of malnutrition and diseases in recent years are too low.

Sudan has been torn apart by civil war since 1984. During the 21-year conflict, more than 2 million people have died from the fighting and starvation.

“The Church in Sudan has been the target of Muslim radicals,” Father Loro explained. “Because of this, the Church has been weakened. They are trying to bring down the whole Church, but I think that could not happen. I have been speaking about the needs of the Church [in Sudan] right now because we lost many things [due to the fighting]. Churches and schools in Juba were destroyed. They want the whole country to be Muslim.”

He said Catholic priests, religious and laity in Sudan educate the people in the faith, teach the children, help bury the dead, shelter and feed displaced and starving survivors, advocate for justice and work for peace.

“The Archdiocese of Juba is right in the very center of the bloody Sudanese conflict,” Father Loro said. “Our clergy, religious and laity [who are] catechists, although they are prime targets of Muslim extremists, are

nevertheless fighting against all odds to keep the flames of our Christian faith burning brightly in our country. … We continue to witness to Christ’s Gospel of peace, love and mercy, serving all our traumatized, desperate people, Muslims included. The Church remains the only voice of reason, the only hope for our people.”

Father Barton loves Sudan, has spent much of his life there, and wants to continue to help the people grow in their faith and educate the children.

“It’s a very poor life,” he said. “Sorghum, a grain, is the main food in Sudan. Then the people have to carry water [to their homes]. It’s always a struggle to survive. So many enemies, so many difficulties, make life very hard.”

His current assignment at St. Theresa Parish in Nyamllel was a mission started in 1933, but the buildings were damaged by fighting and weather during the civil war, and the rubble was left vacant for decades.

When Father Barton arrived in Nyamllel for the first time in 2002, he was the first resident priest to minister to the Dinka people there since 1964, when the Arab government in the north expelled all the Catholic and Protestant missionaries from Sudan.

He said the previous missionary priest and brother assigned there were attacked during the night and had to flee for their lives wearing only their underwear.

“They were left with nothing, no passport, not even their pants,” he said. “They had to escape by running and left everything they had there.”

Nyamllel isn’t the first place where Father Barton has relied on God to start a new ministry with few resources.

When he began his previous mission at Mapuordit in southern Sudan in 1984, he opened a Comboni grade school with 125 children. Eighteen years later and with God’s help, he said, 2,000 students were enrolled at two Comboni grade schools and a secondary school in Mapuordit when he went to Nyamllel in 2002.

During five years at Nyamllel, Father Barton said he has “worked a lot repairing the buildings and getting the school going. We now have three Catholic grade schools there. One school has about 370 students and the other about 350 students, up to class eight. The third school has just 50 children, only class one, two and three. [The schools] feed into Sacred Heart High School.”

On weekends, Father Barton takes turns celebrating Mass at 80 chapels in the Diocese of Rumbek.

“My goal, and what I have been able to do these last five years that I’ve been there, is to celebrate Mass twice a year at each chapel,” Father Barton said, because another Comboni priest helps him with Masses at St. Theresa Parish.

“Now I have more freedom to go out to the chapels more often,” he said. “Last year, we had 1,859 baptisms in the diocese. This year, from Jan. 1 to when I left Nyamllel right after Easter on April 10, we already had over 1,100 baptisms.”

When he arrived in Sudan in 1978, Father Barton said there was an average of two marriages per diocese in Sudan. Now there are more priests and more marriages.

“Every once in a while, I can get some of the parents to have their marriage blessed in church,” he said. “That thrills me. When I can bless a marriage, I always think God is patting me on the back. And not only

marriages, but some of the children will become priests. That’s all very encouraging.”

(For more information about how to help Comboni Father Michael Barton with his missionary work in Sudan, call the archdiocesan Mission Office at 317-236-1485 or 800-382-9836, ext. 1485.) †