A Maryknoll priest builds the Church in Guatemala by constructing chapels and forming lay leaders.
María Luz Morales, 49, recalls the chapel of her childhood in the village of El Caoba, Guatemala. “It was so tiny, made of wood planks,” she says. “There were no chairs or pews. People sat on tree stumps.”
In El Caoba on a recent Sunday, Maryknoll Father William Senger baptized 10 babies and young children. More than 100 people attended a lively liturgy in the spacious, beautifully decorated new chapel. It is one of a dozen buildings that Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers have constructed for the parish of San Juan Apóstol, where Father Senger is pastor.
“Our dear Maryknoll priests have been a treasure,” Morales says. “They came to build up our parish.”
San Juan Apóstol parish is comprised of 20 remote communities in Guatemala’s humid northern lowlands known as the Petén. El Caoba started as an airstrip in the jungle, Morales recounts. Like the other villages in this tropical rainforest encompassing a third of the country’s territory, it was settled by subsistence farmers such as her parents who came to homestead.
Father Senger keeps a busy schedule to reach the parish seat, San Juan Apóstol Church in El Remate, and 17 chapels. The late Maryknoll Father Edward “Ted” Custer had arrived in 2008 to serve these communities that had gone decades without a priest. Father Senger joined Father Custer in 2014, after four years at the vicariate’s cathedral in the town of Flores, the department (state) capital.
The priests kept a running tally of the chapels that needed construction or renovation. Father Senger — affectionately known as “Padre William” — recalls one of them.
“It was a rustic chapel, with walls of ill-fitting wood,” he says. “Termites infested the wood.” When the pests reached the wooden tabernacle, it was time to act. A new chapel was built, where Mass is held twice a month.
Another hamlet, accessible only by dirt road, is 12½ miles from Father Senger’s rectory in Macanché. Its 40 Indigenous families, even the children, speak Q’eqchi’. Maryknollers including the late Father William Mullan, who had learned the language, used to offer Mass there in a dirt-floor cabin. That chapel was finished last year.
“Since Maryknoll has been in this parish, we’ve built 10 new chapels, one by one,” Father Senger says. “We’ll be finishing another this month,” he adds. “It’s 90 percent complete.”
Labor is donated by the men in the communities, Father Senger explains, and overseen by a master builder. The vicariate’s priest architect draws up the plans, and parishioner Alejandro Córdova Mayen coordinates construction.
In addition to the chapels, the Maryknoll Society undertook another significant project for the parish’s future, building a house for the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Jesus. Construction was slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Córdova says, but in May of 2021, the sisters moved in. The property includes a chapel and a large, sheltered outdoor area (a “multipurpose salon”) for programs.
Yet a parish is made up of more than buildings.
The bricks and mortar that hold the parish together are the 60 catechists, delegates of the Word, Eucharistic ministers, chapel coordinators and youth leaders who meet on the fourth Saturday of each month for ongoing formation. Recent topics have included Bible study, the Synod on Synodality and, last year, Guatemala’s Eucharistic Congress.
“We have catechists in all the chapels who can share the Liturgy of the Word on Sundays,” Father Senger says of the delegates of the Word. These lay people are trained to lead services in the hamlets where the priest (who says five weekend Masses) is not scheduled to offer Mass.
The level of engagement is impressive. The parish has 200 altar servers, with 35 in El Remate alone. Ministry leaders meet regularly with their counterparts from three nearby parishes. Some even participate on a diocesan level: for example, Córdova is head of family ministry for the vicariate and one of two lay people on the bishop’s pastoral council.
Francisco Mejía García is coordinator of El Remate. He ensures that services at San Juan Apóstol Church run smoothly and organizes the patronal feast on Dec. 27. He arranges activities for youth, assistance for families in need, visits to the sick and Communion calls.
“Whatever happens in the community, people say, ‘Call Francisco,’” Mejía says. “You identify what’s needed, what is lacking, and that’s what you make a priority.”
A warm welcome is key, Mejía says. For example, four children in the First Communion class are not yet baptized. “I told their families, ‘Don’t be embarrassed, come, we’ll baptize them, too. There is room for everyone.’”
Such an approach is appreciated by the communities. Some families are still dealing with the trauma of Guatemala’s legacy of violence. The country’s bloody civil war (1960-1996) reached even the remote jungles of the Petén, where Maryknoll missioners accompanied the people during those difficult decades.
A catechist named Mario Méndez Méndez, 61, recalls the fear of those times. As a young man in 1984, he was giving a Liturgy of the Word service at his chapel when soldiers arrived and stood at the door. “As soon as the service finished, they took me,” he says. He and 40 other young men were shipped off in the army to other areas.
Nowadays, emigration takes peteneros (people from the Petén) far from home. Every family seems to have someone in “el Norte,” the North, in reference to the United States. María Luz Morales’ son, for example, works 11-hour shifts at a restaurant in California.
One chapel has lost its Eucharistic ministers, Father Senger says. “We had a couple good people, but they left.” In another community, he observes, “there are hardly any men there. They’re all in the States.”
With education, there is hope for a better future at home. The missioner supports 20 students with scholarships. The eldest is studying to become a teacher.
Father Senger has spent his priestly life building the Church in challenging places.
Born in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, as one of 15 siblings, young Bill Senger graduated at the top of both his high school and seminary classes. Ordained in 1973, he was first assigned to Venezuela, where he served over a decade. He then served 17 years in the Amazon rainforest, in Bolivia’s Pando region.
When priests were needed in Honduras, Father Senger volunteered for Central America. He goes where he is needed, he says. Even after five decades in ministry, the missioner’s farm background comes through. Hardworking and uncomplaining, at 78 he still finds purpose in serving.
His easy-going demeanor belies his zeal for completing the mission he shared with Father Custer, who died in March of 2024. This year, Father Senger says, he will construct the final chapel. “We’re going to build the last one, then they’ll all be covered.”
The last chapel will serve 100 families that were displaced from another area of the Petén and granted land within the parish’s territory. In this rugged terrain that is home to people of such strong faith, the resettled community bears an apt name: El Triunfo de la Esperanza — literally, “the triumph of hope.”
Featured image: Maryknoll Father William Senger pauses with altar servers before processing into Mass at San Juan Apóstol Church in El Remate, one of the dozen chapel buildings constructed for the parish by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in Guatemala’s Petén region. (Octavio Durán/Guatemala)
