{"id":1445,"date":"2007-06-14T08:40:32","date_gmt":"2007-06-14T08:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/in-bangaldesh.html"},"modified":"2007-06-14T08:40:32","modified_gmt":"2007-06-14T08:40:32","slug":"in-bangaldesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/in-bangaldesh.html","title":{"rendered":"In Bangaldesh"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the WSJ, a profile of a missionary priest in Bangladesh:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

A half-century ago, the Rev. Eugene Homrich set up a Catholic mission among a tiny pagan tribe clinging to a tropical forest.<\/p>\n

He is still here. As a result, perhaps, so are the Garos, a predominantly farming people whose sari-clad women own the family land and pass on the family name.<\/p>\n

A native of Muskegon, Mich., Father Homrich has founded schools and built clinics for the Garos, most of whom have converted to Christianity. Once, he personally delivered a baby on the back of his motorcycle. During Bangladesh’s bloody civil war in 1971, he stockpiled explosives in his mission and narrowly avoided execution. Now, Father Homrich is confronting the country’s forestry department to stem illegal logging of the Modhupur forest, the Garos’ ancestral homeland.<\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/td>\n

Father Homrich says Mass at the mission. Most Garo are Christian, which makes them subject to discrimination in the largely Muslim nation.<\/p>\n

To the chagrin of the local administration, the blunt, portly American has become the de facto leader of some 20,000 tribe members. "If it weren’t for the father we’d be in a sea of trouble," says Simon Marak, a Garo community activist. "By his grace we’re living here."<\/p>\n

But there is only so much Father Homrich can still do for the Garos. He is turning 79 this year, and recently spent several months in the U.S. for medical treatment. He can be expelled from the country at any time. And despite his efforts, the Modhupur forest has shrunk through logging and development to some 23,000 square miles, one-tenth its size in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

As the country’s population keeps soaring, conflict between the Garos and land-hungry outsiders intensifies. The world’s third-largest Muslim nation, Bangladesh packs 150 million people, about half the population of the U.S., into an Iowa-sized territory.<\/p>\n

\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the WSJ, a profile of a missionary priest in Bangladesh: A half-century ago, the Rev. Eugene Homrich set up a Catholic mission among a tiny pagan tribe clinging to a tropical forest. He is still here. 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She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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