We invite readers to send short stories about the ways in which their lives have been personally blessed by the life and work of priests and religious in our diocese.

By Cathy Tilzey

“I’m blessed,” Father Jim Hazelton said last week, as he talked about the growth of the Diocese of Helena mission in Santo Tomas, Guatemala. He has been there for 43 years and has seen many changes, most for the better.

While home on vacation, the Helena native said he hasn’t stopped building for 10 years.

Sisters Ana Priester and Mary Waddell, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary who have worked there since the mid-1980s, needed a larger chapel and living area, and they got it. Friends sent money for an office building at La Asuncion School, and it has been built. The latest project is an addition to the school’s dormitory, he said.

Father Hazelton grew up in Helena and graduated from Catholic schools, Carroll College and St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colo. Bishop Joseph Gilmore ordained him May 27, 1961. He had only two assignments in western Montana – summer months in Browning, then several years at St. Joseph Parish, Butte.

When he started at the mission in June 1964, there were few roads and they were bad or more like trails. He had a car but had to walk to some parishes. Roads are much better now, but some are steep and rocky in the mountainous area.

There was little education and few grade schools, he said. Now many children complete grade school and a growing number of young adults finish high school.

The mission had no telephones in the 1960s. The staff used citizen-band radios to contact the nearby Diocese of Spokane, Wash., mission, or sent telegrams, Father Hazelton explained.

Population in the area has increased, he noted, and so have new houses and villages. The down side is that less communal land is available for people to cut firewood for free; men and boys cut and sell it.

The growing number of Guatemalans also has increased poverty. Women have a harder time buying corn, a staple in their diet. The people are more mobile and are migrating to Mexico and the United States, which affects the local economy.

Father Hazelton said he has noticed an increase in intentions at Mass, and Masses requested, for Guatemalans living in New York City and Rhode Island, for example.

Emigration is problematic, he explained, because many of the people who enter the United States illegally have to pay up to $3,000 or $4,000 to “coyotes” who smuggle them across the border. To obtain that money, they mortgage their homes then make monthly payments. If they cannot find work, lose jobs or are deported, their homes are forfeited.

He said the mission’s greatest need is the right kind of volunteers, including an English teacher at the school. He hopes that Carroll College will develop a closer relationship with the mission and send more tour groups.

Another need is money to enlarge churches. The 40 or so small churches he built are bursting at the seams and communities are asking for help to build additions. It costs about $3,500 to enlarge one, he said.

Proceeds from the Cathedral of St. Helena’s Hazy Day benefit – which will be held Sept. 30 – will go mostly to the school (65 percent), and the remainder to the churches.


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 23, No. 9, September 21, 2007.