Maltese Franciscan builds Honduras prison with the help of divine providence

Padre Alberto Gauci, a missionary priest in Honduras who is against collecting money, has been showered with divine providence to implement his humanitarian project.

"Like I told you... somehow the money always comes. Somehow St Francis always manages to open hearts. He finds the money and I spend it," he wrote in a letter to The Times.

Last August, this newspaper featured an article on Padre Alberto, a chain-smoking, young-hearted Franciscan priest who was on a mission to build a prison in the Diocese of Olancho, with his team of volunteers. This was intended to provide an alternative to the state prison, built 90 years ago for 80 people, and today housing 427 prisoners living in cramped, appalling conditions - some were in there for just stealing a chicken.

After obtaining a large stretch of land, Padre Alberto set about creating a new prison that can take up to 800 people and also serve as a rehabilitation centre where inmates can learn to be useful once released back into society.

The prison cost about $900,000, and was being partly funded by the state but Padre Alberto and his team had to collect the rest. Back in August he had said he hated the concept of missions coming to Malta just to collect money and, sure enough, the funds materialised.

In December, the prison was finally inaugurated with much pomp in the presence of the President of Honduras, the Bishop, the mayor and the governor, as the building was handed over to the State's Ministry of Security, which is responsible for running it.

"I told you we'll make it. I know it was supposed to open in October but this is Honduras and a couple of months are nothing. It was a fantastic inauguration," Padre Alberto wrote.

"About 50 prisoners were also there with tears in their eyes as they saw their new 'home'."

In typical Franciscan fashion, Padre Alberto, who was "infatuated" with St Francis of Assisi, God's pauper, from an early age, is now on his next mission to build a sports complex in the area, which will cost some $2 million.

Living in Honduras, where he runs a parish of 50,000 single-handedly, Padre Alberto has managed to set up a string of successful projects such as an orphanage, a bakery, a home for the elderly, who are usually abandoned to their own fate by relatives, and a home for AIDS sufferers.

In 2001, he was honoured with the National Award for Human Rights and the untiring, 60-year-old Franciscan will never stop working to bring about change in an area, where thousands live in abject poverty.

He lives by the Franciscan philosophy to "attend, simply and directly, to the spiritual and other basic human needs, especially those of the poor and disenfranchised, promoting justice for all".

"It's now adios to Maltese beer, fenek (rabbit), and coffee at Cordina's. Back to beans, rice and tortillas... but I love it," Padre Alberto wrote.