Jesuit Outreach, Segundo Barrio

Beginnings

In the 1870s Jesuits from Naples, Italy, came to the El Paso area and established a string of more than 30 parishes, laying the foundation for the diocese of El Paso. Jesuit Fr. Anthony J. Schuler was consecrated the first Bishop in 1915. In 1892 these Jesuits had founded Sacred Heart parish in El Paso to respond to the needs of the people up and down the Rio Grande Valley and on both sides of the border. An introduction to the people who characterize Segundo Barrio was carried on PBS in 2010.

Modern Era

One Jesuit whose outreach to the neighborhood is well-remembered is Fr. Harold Rahm, a pastoral associate at Sacred Heart Parish from 1952 to 1964. In 1952 he formed Guadalupano Club which held parties, weekend retreats, picnics, and spiritual meetings, and the following year obtained and outfitted Our Lady's Youth Center for sports and other activities. He also opened Camp Juan Diego for a get-away. All these redirected the energies of gang members and at-risk youth in the area. He also founded an employment office, a thrift store, a credit union, and homes for young people. The La Fe Family Health Center, which has continued to grow and prosper, was originally named Father Rahm Clinic in honor of his work.

Rahm used his bicycle to deliver breakfast to the elderly, and found that with a bicycle he could get closer to where the youth hang out. In El Paso he began his lifelong work of addressing drug addiction, before his religious superiors sent him to Brazil where he became prominent for his drug treatment and prevention initiatives. Thomas Browne, Director of the Narcotics Division of the US State Department, described Rahm as his "role model, ... prominently featured by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.) in congressional field hearings across the nation. His book on working with gangs, "Office in the Alley" [in El Paso], was mandatory reading in my university juvenile delinquency course." In 2015, at 96, Rahm came back from Brazil to receive the first ever "Segundo Barrio Person of the Year" award. On sending him to Brazil, Rahm's religious superiors allowed him to choose his own replacement, and he chose Fr. Richard Thomas, a former student of his in Tampa.

Extended outreach

Fr. Richard Thomas, S.J., remained in the job from 1964 until his death in 2006. He continued the work with the students at Public High School Bowie in the district and instituted a graduation Mass for them at Sacred Heart. He increased the outreach to the poor in Juarez, Mexico, by bringing donated food items from truck farms in west Texas and New Mexico. In 1975 he founded The Lord’s Ranch near Vado, New Mexico, 40 miles from Sacred Heart. Over the years the ranch has provided recreation and rehabilitation for needy youth, housed hundreds of visitors from all over the world, offered retreats for young and old, grown food stuffs which are shared with the poor in Juarez, and served as home to KJES International Shortwave Radio Station. Young adults in the charismatic movement still live and work at the ranch with the support of a Jesuit chaplain. In 1997 Thomas acquired a more spacious building for the Youth Center and situated there Las Alas, the meeting and administrative center for The Lord's Ranch community, while he increased the emphasis on spiritual and charismatic programs at the Center. Three books have been written about Thomas and his works.

Emphasis on education

In 1996 Jesuit Fr. Rafael Garcia expanded the educational offerings of the parish in the old school building under the name Pastoral Social Center, providing 46 semester hours of multi-leveled educational opportunities a week for over 250 adults. Courses include Adult Basic Education (ABE), high school equivalency (GED) in both English and Spanish, and English as a second language (ESL), along with computer literacy and professional courses. Help with naturalization procedures and civic participation continues unabated. Expenses for the Pastoral Social Center exceed revenue by $5,000 a month but benefactors make up the difference. The Center recently received a $1.5 million gift to serve as an endowment for its education services. The Center addresses other basic needs through La Despensa, the parish food bank, and by the St. Vincent de Paul program. Service extends to many who live in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, but work in El Paso. Sr, Carmen Gomez, while assisting Garcia, wrote:

It was across the Rio Grande in Juarez that the cry of the poor was most demanding, where well over a million people lived in poverty worse than any experienced in El Paso. Many of the members of the community ... went "to see." ... Visiting the city’s municipal garbage dump, they found the poorest of the poor, feeding themselves and their children, sleeping in shelters made from trash, collecting whatever might be usable and salable on the streets. It reminded me of Lk 14.13: "When you have a banquet, invite the poor."

Twenty-first century

The Pastoral Social Center, with Jesuit Fr. Ron Gonzales at the helm, continues its outreach, along with other programs initiated by the three Jesuits above and by other Jesuits in the parish. Sacred Heart Parish remains a busy place, with its office open seven days a week to serve a neighborhood which in 2010 had a 62.8% poverty rate, median household income of just $13,600. and 83% with no high school diploma.

A parish center with multi-purpose gym has been a busy place since it was built in 1949. It serves as an event center for the neighborhood, a hub of activities like parish festivals, ventas (flea market), health screenings, and ministry fairs. Fr. Rahm had tried to run an inexpensive restaurant in it, which went under. But currently it hosts La Tilma Mexican Restaurant and Catering creating employment and training opportunities for community members, serving approximately 12,000 people annually. Until 2015 La Tilma served a free thanksgiving dinner to as many as 2000, but since then Thanksgiving food baskets are being distributed to the poorest. Wall art is popular in El Paso, and the front of the center has "one of the most famous murals in all of Texas," telling the story of El Paso, including Rahm on his bicycle.

Outreach doesn't stop at the border town. Jesuit Brother Pete Zagone, former director of Social and Youth Ministry at Sacred Heart, was a part of the extended Jesuit outreach, welcoming Jesuit novices and students from Jesuit high schools and universities for extended visits and acquainting them with the situation of Hispanic immigrants.