Help and Hope for Catholics in Kyrgyzstan

By Bishop Jeffrey M. Monforton

As Father Anthony Corcoran visited a home for the elderly in Kyrgyzstan, which was once a Soviet gulag colony, an old man shouted out, “Priest! I am Polish!”

The man, who had not seen a Catholic priest for six decades, had kept the faith through communist persecution by counting the Rosary on his fingers. He pleaded to receive the sacraments.

When Father Anthony urged him to take time to prepare, the man laughed. “I have prepared myself every single day to receive the sacrament by saying the prayers in preparation for going to Confession that I was taught as a little boy,” he said.

His story is not unusual in Kyrgyzstan. Many of its Catholics are ethnic Poles or Germans whose parents or grandparents were deported from western Russia for refusing to renounce their faith.

Catholic ministry in 28 nations that once suffered under Soviet rule is supported by gifts to the Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe taken up in most dioceses on Ash Wednesday. Without it, priests such as Father Anthony can’t put gas in their cars to visit remote towns or run youth camps or pro-life ministries. 

Though Kyrgyzstan’s churches are few and tiny, they are packed with desperately poor people whose greatest treasure is their faith.

“They are still suffering from the scars of communism,” said Bishop Jeffrey Monforton of Steubenville and chairman of the Subcommittee for Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, who visited Kyrgyzstan in 2019.

“The ministry of reaching out there is quintessentially what Pope Francis means when he speaks of going to the peripheries.”

Eight priests serve the entire nation, assisted by five Slovak School Sisters of St. Francis and a Jesuit lay brother. Father Anthony, a Jesuit from Texas, is the apostolic administrator. He lives at St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral, a tiny church in a remote neighborhood of the capital city, Bishkek. 

In 1956, the Soviets had demolished an earlier Bishkek church soon after it was built, imprisoned the pastor, and exiled the parishioners to other towns. But Catholics persisted and, in 1968, received permission to convert an old house into the current cathedral – providing it didn’t look like a church from the outside. Around 1980, parishioners risked prison to secretly add balconies.

“Every inch, every nail of our church was built by the hands and hearts of our Catholics who desired a place to gather and to pray and to receive the sacraments,” Father Anthony said.

Today the balconies are packed with Catholics who sing with zeal. Young adults pray the Rosary as fervently as their elders before every Mass or any journey. Their tradition of lay participation preceded the Second Vatican Council by 40 years.

“For decades before priests were allowed to minister – and even freed from prisons and gulags – the laity led the community in prayer, catechized, and even sometimes baptized,” Father Anthony said.

Among Catholics born after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, “there remains a strong sense of responsibility by many of the laity for the Church’s activity.”

When Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, Wis., and member of the Subcommittee for the Aid to Central and Eastern Europe visited Bishkek in 2019, he was reminded of the first churches in the Acts of the Apostles.
“You had a community of Christians that was very numerically small, but who were radically dedicated to Christ and to the mission of preaching the gospel,” he said. “They were extraordinarily effective beyond their numbers because of their commitment to living their mission.”

While accompanying Catholic youth who visit nursing homes, Bishop Monforton was asked to confirm an elderly woman. She had been baptized as an infant, but her parents would not risk Confirmation. For decades, she had longed for the sacrament. A girl from the youth group stepped in as her sponsor.

“It was definitely a very tearful encounter,” Bishop Monforton said.  “She saw my visit to Jalal Abad as an act of God, that her prayers were answered.”

The Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe exists to answer such prayers. 

“They need everything,” Bishop Monforton said of the Catholics of Kyrgyzstan. Despite extensive travel in the former Soviet empire, “I had not seen poverty like that before.”

Water to the church in Jalal Abad – the largest city in southern Kyrgyzstan – is supplied by a garden hose. When Bishop Monforton discovered that the connection had broken, he used a clamp, a butter knife and nail clippers “to do my own version of MacGyver to put it back together.” 

Catholics – a minuscule minority in Kyrgyzstan – are free to practice their faith. Relationships with their Muslim and secular neighbors are generally good. There are restrictions, however, on spreading the gospel.  Clergy can answer questions from non-Catholics but can’t initiate an invitation to follow Christ. 

They silently witness to the love of Jesus through social and educational outreach.

The Catholic Church in Kyrgyzstan assists the elderly, feeds the hungry, and runs orphanages, an addiction recovery program and a home for single mothers. The church’s pro-life work can be dramatic in a society where women who become pregnant outside marriage sometimes face violence. A woman was smuggled to safety during Bishop Monforton’s visit.

Ministry to Catholic teens includes “Faith and Reason.” Gifted students receive advanced science education intended to inoculate them against the idea that faith conflicts with science.

“We have to be honest in expressing our great concern for the spiritual, moral and religious well-being of these young people. Influences working against their faith are many and powerful,” Father Anthony said.

He recalled an elderly woman who helped him understand the needs of former prisoners such as herself, but whose greater concern was for the youth. She counseled him that people born into freedom would need a faith deeper than her own because the difference between good and evil would be less visible to them. 

“Her profound humility and remarkable insight about God’s mysterious design for our generation of Catholics remains in my thoughts and prayers,” Father Anthony said.

A crown jewel of ministry in Kyrgyzstan is a youth camp, The Children’s Rehabilitation and Spirituality Center, on the shore of the breathtaking Lake Issyk-Kul. In addition to retreats for Catholic youth, two signature programs serve non-Catholics.

In a typical year, 1,000 special needs children enjoy holidays there. Another 100 public school students – all of them Muslim – attend an astronomy camp run by a Polish Jesuit.

Although the camp cannot evangelize, it allows Muslim teenagers a positive impression of the Church and implicitly demonstrates the compatibility of faith and science.

“It gives the kids dignity and purpose,” Bishop Monforton said. “It’s an opportunity for them to know that they are valued, that they were not made by mistake.”

But the astronomy program – whose total budget is less than $15,000 – lost much of its funding in 2019. Father Anthony was determined to continue it – and then COVID struck. With all camps canceled, the Church converted the facility into a respite center for exhausted healthcare workers. The church also distributed food to the public and gave medical supplies to emergency field hospitals. 

During the spring lockdown, the priests started a “virtual chapel” on WhatsApp. It had surprise benefits. More young people participated in liturgical leadership. Catholics from across the country became friends. Though Mass has resumed, the online prayer groups and Bible studies continue.

Almost every facet of this ministry requires support from the Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe. 

“Basic expenses, such as transportation between the missions and subsidizing the cost of heating often seem unspectacular, but – materially speaking – they are the basis of our ability to function,” Father Anthony said.

His biggest dream is for a new cathedral, though one of modest proportions, in the center of the capital. The tiny church in Bishkek is bursting at the seams.  

“As important as our little church remains to our community, the center of the city is necessary for better evangelizing – since it will be more visible and accessible,” he said. “Our hope is to build a church that is identifiably Catholic in architecture and interior. It will be the only one of its kind in the country and will stand for decades, if not centuries, as a testament to the presence of Catholics in this area.”

Gifts to the collection have more than monetary value, Bishop Monforton said.

“We have the privilege to build up the body of Christ, so that people will know there is hope,” he said.