Madagascar's 'living saint' Father Pedro Opeka possible contender for Nobel Peace Prize

Record ID: 1434230

  • Title: Madagascar's 'living saint' Father Pedro Opeka possible contender for Nobel Peace Prize
  • Date: 27th September 2019
  • Summary: ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** CHILDREN WAVING ARMS IN PERFORMANCE FOR POPE POPE BLESSING CHILDREN ON STAGE
  • Embargoed: 11th October 2019 14:09
  • Keywords: Pedro Opeka Father Pedro Opeka Nobel Peace Prize nominee
  • Location: ANTANANARIVO, MADAGASCAR
  • City: ANTANANARIVO, MADAGASCAR
  • Country: Madagascar
  • Topics: Society/Social Issues
  • Reuters ID: LVA006AYGC85J
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A former student of Pope Francis who has changed the lives of thousands of poor people who once lived in garbage dumps in Madagascar is a possible contender for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
    The white-bearded, jovial Opeka, 71, has been called a "living saint" along the lines of Mother Teresa of Calcutta by many in Madagascar because of his work in one of Africa's poorest countries.
    Over the last 30 years, an organisation founded by Father Pedro Opeka, whose parents emigrated to Argentina from Slovenia, has built homes for 25,000 people, 100 schools, six clinics and two football stadiums across the island nation. Next year, he plans to build a college for paramedics.
    Much of the stone for the buildings is quarried just outside the capital city Antananarivo, from the huge granite pit where Opeka holds Mass for 10,000 people several times a year. Opeka, the son of a mason, refers to the pit as his cathedral.
    Residents of neighbourhoods built by the association earn around 50,000 ariary ($13) per week in exchange for breaking rocks by hand and building stone walls. They are given a house which they rent at a negligible rate, depending on their circumstances.
    Trained by his father, Opeka built his first wall at 14 and his first home for the poor at 17. He joined a Catholic mission to Madagascar at 22, when he met 800 families living in and around Antananarivo's municipal rubbish dump. During sleepless nights, he prayed for guidance to ease their suffering.
    A member of the Lazarist or Vincentian order of priests, founded to minister to the rural poor, he created the Akamasoa Association to build and run the villages using donations from around the world. His work has earned him the Legion of Honour, France's highest order of merit.
    Pope Francis taught Father Opeka theology at the Colegio Máximo de San Miguel in Buenos Aires in 1968 while Francis was completing his own studies for the priesthood.
    Opeka hosted Francis in Antananarivo in September 2019 where he was met by thousands of former slum dwellers, most of them children, who also gave the pope an ecstatic welcome, leaving the pontiff seemingly overwhelmed by the experience. The pope then joined Opeka in his "stone cathedral" for mass.
    (Production: Lucy Marks)
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