4. The Augustinian Recollects become citizens of Tapaua

The missionaries came to the conclusion of the need for a constant presence in the Northern part of the prelature of Labrea. José Alvarez (in charge of the prelature between 1944 and 1967) expressed this on many occasions; and from Canutama Isidoro Irigoyen, Saturnino Fernandez and Victório Henrique Cestaro express this clearly in their reports.

A. . Establishing a new community

In March 1963 the Bishop sent to Tapaua a young Brazilian Augustinian Recollect missionary, Victório Henrique Cestaro, who had arrived not long before in the prelature, with the mission of organising a new ministry. Since then Tapaua and the Augustinian Recollects have gone hand in hand, and the missionaries have formed part of this society with an important role in the makeup of the municipality.

Cestaro was a son of Italian migrants, born in 1934 in Olimpia in the State of São Paulo and died on the 11^th of February 2011 in Manaus. As a child he studied in the minor seminary of Ribeirão Preto of the Province of Saint Rita in the Order of the Augustinian Recollects, and after ordination was sent to the prelature of Labrea where he passed through Labrea and Canutama before establishing a ministry in Tapaua.

The first time that Victório had been in Tapaua was with Saturnino Fernandez in the desobriga organized from Canutama in 1992. They arrived to the city of Tapaua, in full construction and confident activity as municipal headquarters. Saturnino returned up river towards Canutama and left Victório to continue down river until the community of Tambaquí, the last in the parish.

The creation of the municipality had reinforced the idea of creating a new parish with a stable community of missionaries. The arrival of four young religious to the prelature (Victório Henrique Cestaro, João Junqueira, Augusto Nowacki and Enéas Berilli) allowed this idea to become a reality.

On the 8^th of March 1963, Cestaro disembarked in Tapaua definitely, and bought for the prelature of Labrea a property in the same central main square as well as starting the construction for the Church of Saint Rita.

From the beginning, he counted on the effective help of Vitorino Marques, a local trader, who would be named as the godfather of Saint Rita’s parish; and who received later the honorary title of Citizen of Tapaua for his tireless help in the organization of the new city.

Victório organized what was necessary to build up a parish in every sense, material and human. He created the first pastoral groups: the Catholic League of Jesus, Mary and Joseph founded on Saint Augustine’s day in 1963 with twenty-six men; the Marian youth group; and Prayer Apostolate, on the 3^rd of September 1965, with twenty-nine women, even today one of the longest lasting groups.

His first reports show disappointment: “Unfortunately, the human element in this region leaves much to be desired for being an environment infested with a savageness which belongs to the jungle. (…) Many forget their responsibilities and return to their old practices of religious indifference, drunkenness, adultery. Overindulgence of alcohol and a machismo ideal were grave social and pastoral problems in those first years, and continue to be so fifty years later.

The desobrigas in the rural region gave as a result around 200 baptisms and between thirty and forty marriages a year. In December 1963 they celebrated for the first time Christmas with Mass, with a Nativity and a Christmas tree with coloured baubles. Significantly at the time someone asked if the baubles had really come from this massaranduba, one of the typical regional trees of the Amazon region, which was similar to a Christmas pine. They also organized a Holy Hour for New Year with a procession of a hundred children, with Wise Kings and sweets.

B. Community is more than one

For eleven months Cestaro was alone, until in February 1964 Augusto João Krema Nowacki arrived who would stay in the city until the next year. Then on the 3^rd of April 1966 Enéas Berilli arrived, coming from Canutama. Also, in the middle of 1966, there came the Spanish Religious Pedro Arrieta.

On the 2^nd of February 1964 was the first ceremony for First Communion, with sixty-three children receiving catechesis three months before. Tapaua dressed up for a fiesta and almost all the families had someone receiving First Communion. These sixty-three were the first members of the Infant Eucharistic Crusade; and eighteen of them formed part of the first group of altar servers. It was a way of giving the children a special relevance, which with time has been maintained and strengthened far beyond their participation in the liturgy.

In 1966 they started an activity with important social consequences, in order to improve the education and communication of the inhabitants. They bought a system of speakers for the Church, but they gave them a more general use with the introduction of “the Voice of Saint Rita”. As well as giving out religious education it offered music, and was the origin of a general public education service; something for which in the region the Church of Labrea has been at the forefront.

The religious in Tapaua from the beginning up until today have applied themselves to teaching. Cestaro and Nowacki taught in the college of the Prelature, whilst Arrieta did the same in State schools in the course of 1968, until December when he returned to his native Mexico.

One of the first orders of the Bishop was the building of a residence for the community. But the Prelature accepted the idea of the religious to dedicate the resources to a new parish school, after seeing the situation of neglect for minors. The religious decided to live in a room given them by the town council. Only in November 1964 was the construction of the community residence started, and was finished in July 1965.

Another building made by the community housed the electric generator which was at the disposition of the population. The “Monsignor Ignacio Electrical Centre” put an end to the darkness which once existed in Tapaua; the first motor bought by the Town Council had stopped working some time ago, and it was impossible to fix it because of the lack of parts.

Berilli was one of the designers of public works in Tapaua: he was the foreman for the main church of Saint Rita, for the Parish house, for the Dom José Alvarez School, for the main building for the Municipal Service of Roads and the Lucilia Marques Park for Infants.

The arrival of the Religious community supposed a greater pastoral attention and gave an important push to the definite advance of Tapaua as the headquarters for the new municipality, that was then ten years old.

NEXT PAGE: 5. Half a century building the Parish

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