PETER DONDERS
SILENT THUNDER:
A LIFE OF PETER DONDERS, CSSR
By Andrew Costello, CSSR
INTRODUCTION
On May 23, 1982, Pope John Paul II declared Peter Donders “Blessed”. This was the next to the last step before the Church can call him a “Saint”.
Perhaps you never heard of this man of perseverance, this man of “silent thunder”, this priest who worked for over 44 years in Surinam, a former Dutch colony on the Atlantic side of the northern tip of South America.
“Donders” means “thunder”. The word even sounds like it. Those who knew Peter Donders, knew when he was around — like thunder — but he was silent. He was a quiet, steady form of God’s love and God’s power to all those he served.
This short life is dedicated to this remarkable man.
FROM HOLLAND
He was born on October 27, 1809 in Tilburg, Netherlands. His baptismal record in the parish church of St. Denis shows that Peter was baptized the same day he was born.
His father, Arnold, had various tragedies in his life - especially with the death of wives. The script of his life sounds like it is straight out of the book of Job. His first wife, Jane Van Wanroy died on May 16, 1781, leaving him no children. They had been married less than 2 years. Shortly afterwards he married Jane Mary Van der Waarden. They had 2 children, both of whom died in childhood. A few years she too died. A while later he married a woman named Petronilla van den Brekel. They had 2 children: Peter and Martin. When Peter was 6 his mom died. Less than 2 years later, on May 19, 1817, his dad married Jane Mary Van de Pas.
They were very poor. At the age of 12 Peter had to drop out of school to help his dad, who was a weaver.
Around 50 years later, Peter Donders, looking back on his childhood, wrote that his dream was to become a priest. “It pleased the good God to give me at any early age, about five or six years, an ardent desire for the priesthood in order to work for the salvation of souls so dear to him.”
MINOR SEMINARY
All through his adolescent years, even though he left school, Peter never lost his dream of one day becoming a priest.
At the age of 22 he entered St. Michael’s Minor Seminary – especially because of the encouragement of two of his parish priests..
Peter Donders will probably end up as the patron saint we pray to for patience and perseverance. All through his life he was one of those steady, reliable types. He was the type that never gives up – the type that keeps struggling on step by step till the job is done. He must have learned from his dad the weaver, that thread by thread the cloth is made.
Peter had some tough problems to cope with in life. Besides his job he had to deal with students who were much younger, some as much as 10 years. Many were financially and academically better off. Peter worked his way through the seminary. Seeing Peter the servant, seeing that he was shy, awkward and poorly clothed, some thought themselves better than he. Various nicknames resulted, for example, “The Scarecrow”.
In the seminary his teachers didn’t think he was bright enough, but they let him stay there as a domestic servant and maintenance man. This didn’t kill his dream either. Within a year he was taking courses on the side, continuing his regular job at the seminary.
In the classroom Peter found himself in what must have seemed a foreign land. He had been away from the books too long. He often had no idea what his teachers were talking about. When this caused laughter because of his comments, his teachers got angry at times. This brought even more jokes from his fellow students.
The different books on Peter Donders say he took all this in stride. He was not going to allow anything to block him on the road to the priesthood. But once Peter became known, he became liked. In modern psychological terms, “Once he became a person to them, most treated him like one.”
After Donders death, a Father Odenhoven reported the following. He had heard it from contemporaries of Father Donders, “He was generally among the lowest in the class; and the lack of time for his studies is sufficient explanation. Examinations on the Bible were an exception, as he usually came first or close to the top. The students teased him but were generally fond of him. They supplied him with writing materials, books and so on, and they helped him with his lessons, mathematics, history and the rest." 1
In the seminary, because of Peter Donders, the name “Peerke” (Dutch for Peter) became the traditional name at St. Michael’s given to students of exceptional piety. Those around him began to know that behind his smile and sense of joy, there was a deep well of holiness and spirituality.
MAJOR SEMINARY
At the age of 26 Peter was ready for the major seminary. He had been averaging 80 in his studies. The questions now were: What seminary should he go to? Who was going to pay for it? His family couldn’t. His dad had died 2 years earlier. His stepmother had moved from Tilburg. His brother, Martin, was mentally handicapped.
The president of the major seminary at Herlaar, Philip Van de Ven, knew him while he was at St. Michael’s. He suggested that Peter ask a religious order to accept him. Perhaps the reason was financial, but it was also well known that Peter wanted to be a missionary priest. He tried the Jesuits, the Redemptorists, and the Franciscans. All refused. Peter didn’t give up. He went back to the president of the major seminary. He accepted Peter. Arrangements were made for Peter to receive financial aid from “grants” established by benefactors for needy students.
Peter found the major seminary easier than the minor seminary. Philosophy and theology were easier than Latin and some of the courses he had trouble with at St. Michael’s.
His reputation for holiness and zeal grew. This does not mean that Peter was not human. Unfortunately, that’s how “saints” were often pictured in past centuries. To some “saint” meant an aloof character on a pedestal far above people — whose job was to take the joy out of life.
Peter Donders was a quiet character. He wasn’t a loner, but all through his life many times he had to deal with being alone. Not the life of the party type, he did enjoy get togethers and games at the seminary. His biographers tell us that he drank beer and smoked a pipe. Reading about him, one gets the impression that he was a person you would experience a feeling of peace with. He was a good listener. He was one of those persons you would never be scared to ask a favor. He was a “saint” with a smile.
In fact all through his life the word “saint” was used in regards to Donders — from back in the parish he grew up in — through the minor and major seminaries — and all through his years in Surinam. Years later a fellow student said “While in the seminary Peter was an example of all the virtues; we used to revere him as a saint.”2 After Donders’ death, another priest, now in his eighties, spoke about his days in the seminary with Peter, “I must say that I never met a man more spiritual, a meeker man, a man more God-fearing, or more charitable toward his neighbor. And I will add that it is well-nigh impossible to find one who surpasses him in these virtues.”3
Knowing that Peter wanted to go to the foreign missions, his teacher, guide, and his former parish priest, Father Van Someren suggested that he go to Surinam, one of the Dutch missions. If Peter wasn’t opposed to that idea, he said he would speak to the Apostolic Prefect of the Mission there, Bishop James Groof. When Groof came to the seminary a short time later in search of priests for Surinam, Peter met him and agreed to go there after his ordination.
And that’s how Peter Donders ended up going to Surinam. At one point he thought he would be going to North America, because of the huge, need for priests there. How often the direction of someone’s life flows from a single comment while having a cup of coffee or in a classroom or in the confessional or in the sacristy or in a corridor as we move from one room to another room in our lives. It’s like the day Jesus walked along the Sea of Galilee and called Peter to “Come after me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). That morning St. Peter didn’t know the whole direction of his life would change that day. So too Peter Donders as he told Bishop Groof he wanted to go to Surinam.
SURINAM
In July of 1841 Peter Donders was ordained a priest. However, it wasn’t till the following: year — on August 1st, 1842, - that he would set sail for Surinam. Delays, more schooling, and various preparations got in the way.
The trip took 46 days. Peter never returned to Holland. He spent the last 44 years of his life working in Surinam. Perhaps the hardest part of the trip was not being able to say Mass. He tried to pick up a chalice in Amsterdam, but couldn’t come up with one. And on the morning of August 1st when he was saying his prayers in the parish church before saying Mass, someone came up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder and told him that his ship was about to leave. He had to run without saying Mass.4
Peter had a rough idea what Surinam or Dutch Guyana was like from his readings — and also from the talk given by Bishop Groof to the seminarians in the beginning of 1839.
Priests were urgently needed. That was the heart of Groof’s message. The Amerindians, the slaves, those with leprosy, the blacks, the colonists, and the various other peoples there all needed priests who could challenge them to lead a more spiritual life. Groof spoke of the mosquitoes, the sickness, and the various other hardships of a missionary’s life in Surinam.
Peter was the only one who answered his appeal. On September 16, 1842, his ship the Rathuizen, came in sight of Surinam. They sailed up the Surinam River to the port and capital, Paramaribo. Bishop Groof and a great crowd of people met their new priest, Father Peter Donders, and accompanied him to the cathedral.
In this opening address that day, Bishop Groof spoke of an “iron cross” that Father Donders would have to carry. That’s how he described the demands of the work of a priest in Surinam.
“Jesus said to all: `Whoever wishes to be my follower must deny his very self, take up his cross each day, and follow in my steps. Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit does he show who gains the whole world and destroys himself in the process? If a man is ashamed of me and my doctrine, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and that of his Father and his holy angels. I assure you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the reign of God.” (Luke 9:23-27)
Before his death 44 years later Peter Donders tasted the reign or the Kingdom of God in Surinam. His life was a daily picking up of an “iron cross” because Surinam was a difficult place to work in.
It was 5 times larger than the Netherlands. Its population, its tropical climate, and most everything else was obviously different than Holland. Travel was usually by boat, because water is synonymous with Surinam. The word “Surinam” is an Amerindian word meaning “Rocky Waters” and the word “Guyana” is the Amerindian word of “Land of Many Waters”. First there is the Atlantic, then there are the many rivers in the coastal lowlands. Above the lowlands is a narrow belt of sandy soil. Then one comes to a grassy, higher and almost dense, impenetrable tropical jungle of inner hills, mountains and more rivers.
Its population today is around 476,000 – most of whom (160,000) live in the capital, Paramaribo. In Father Donders’ day the population was less than half that. When he arrived, besides Paramaribo, there were only 2 other towns or villages, New Rotterdam and Coronie.
Surinam is a territory of 63,039 square miles – roughly the size of Missouri or Oklahoma. Its people were Dutch, Indian, Black, Mulatto, and a host of other peoples from all over the world – especially from other Dutch colonies.
Three years later Peter Donders wrote back to Father Van Someren in the seminary the following description of Surinam “Would you like to have a rough outline of what this colony of ours is like? Imagine then, a vast forest, just as it came from the Creator’s hands: Ipse dixit et facta sunt – a forest stretching coastwise for a distance of more than a hundred and eighty miles, with a depth, in the direction of the Tumac Humac mountains, which I have never heard stated precisely. Imagine a forest consisting of every species of tree – species beyond all reckoning – and alive with every species of wild beast - tigers, monkeys, etc. – including an enormous number of snakes, most of them poisonous. Lastly imagine this immeasurable virgin forest intersected by rivers and streams alive, not only with fish of many kinds, but also with crocodiles and sharks. Though most fertile, a relatively small part of this country is under cultivation, as, up to the present, none but slaves have been employed on the land. Outside the town, which contains but few residences and looks as though it were buried in the depths of the forest there are numerous plantations.”5
PARAMARIBO
When Peter arrived, Paramaribo had a population of around 18,000 people. 2,000 were Catholics.
Like a tourist everything around him was an “eye opener”. The Cathedral was a wooden construction. It flanked one of the oldest and principal streets in the city: the “Gravenstraat”. Peter went out each day, walking up and down streets that were shaded by mahogany trees, streets with Dutch names like “Herenstraat”, “Wagenwegstraat” and “Keizerstraat”. The better homes were brightly colored with stilted balconies. He went down to the people in the markets and to Independence Square – which in Dutch was “Onaflankelijkheidsplein”.
But Peter was no tourist. He had come to preach and teach people about the love and will of God. He was surprised by the immorality and vice in the city and how people seemed to live with little thought of God.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light”. (Matthew 12: 28-30)
That was exactly what Peter Donders wanted to do — to bring all people to Christ, so that He could refresh them and help them carry the burdens of life. He wanted all to see their own individual value —to help people to step back from their life, to step back from their sins, to step back from their everyday small talk and pursuits, to step back in prayer and see the importance of their souls, to hear God’s call to each person to understand that they will only be happy by doing the Father’s will.
The language of Surinam is a form of “pigeon English”. It has developed through the years. Today it is called “Taki-taki” or “Sran Tongo”. Peter picked up this language very well and became a master at it.
The language of sermons everywhere was this “pigeon English”, but in the Cathedral of Paramaribo, it was Dutch. It wasn’t till October 31st, 1842 – 45 days after Peter arrived, that he preached his first sermon at the Cathedral. The topic was the value of the individual soul. That one idea, that single theme, sums up Peter’s main reason for being a priest, his main reason for coming to Surinam – the value of every person in God’s eyes.
Peter’s first 55 days were not all spent in Paramaribo. The Prefect Apostolic, to give him a larger picture of Surinam, and also to show him one of his special loves, took him to Batavia, the colony for people with leprosy. At the time it housed around 600 people. They set out by boat on October 7th or 8th and didn’t return till October 20th. On the way back they stopped at a few of the sugar and cotton plantations to visit the slaves.
Peter, during those first 55 days, experienced what he was to experience for the next 44 years — visiting the sick, preaching, taking care of the people in the city, and seeing the people in the interior – especially the poorest and most abandoned.
PARISH PRIEST
Paramaribo was Peter’s first assignment. He spent his first 14 years there — much of the time in the city, but at various times he made trips into the interior.
Donders’ daily schedule at Paramaribo was as follows: He would get up very early and go to the church to pray. Then he would say Mass at 7. After Mass he would take 15 minutes for thanksgiving prayers. Then he would go to the rectory for a quick cup of coffee. At 8 o’clock he taught at the school. Half the class time was devoted to praying and catechism and the other half to reading and writing. Next he would visit the sick and other people in the town – especially sinners.
He would aim to get back to the rectory by noon. He would have dinner and then go to the cathedral to pray. At that time in his life he didn’t take the traditional siesta. Next he would teach the First Communion children or make further visits to people in town. At times he would stop and play the organ.
At seven in the evening he would give adult instructions. For the remainder of the evening he would sit around and chat with the other priests — often far into the night. Once Bishop Schaap asked Donders, “Tell me, Father, how on earth did you become such a heavy smoker?” His answer about his pipe smoking was “Oh, ever since I used to sit up late – often till midnight – with Mgr. Groof.” In his life of Peter Donders, Father John Kronenburg, C.SS.R. says that Groof was an insomniac.6
Groof realized pretty quickly that he had an amazing priest with him — besides a friend who would talk with him late into the night. Two months after Donders arrived, Bishop Groof wrote to the Procurator of the Surinam mission in Holland, “I have not the smallest doubt but that Father Donders is going to be a source of great relief and consolation to me in the midst of my many worries. It is clearly the one wish of the young missionary to share with me both the heats of the day and the burden of the ministry.” Kronenberg adds that 5 weeks later Bishop Groof wrote again to the Procurator, “May God soon raise us up another Father Donders. He is a great help and a great comfort to me.”7
During those 14 years in Paramaribo Donders saw his friend Groof changed to Java. He was appointed Vicar Apostolic there. This was a severe blow to Surinam because Groof was a remarkable worker. He was appointed Prefect Apostolic of Surinam when he was only 27 –serving in that position from 1827-1843. And for a brief period – May of 1853 to September of 1854 – Donders himself held the office of Pro-vicar while Most Rev. Scheepers, who had been Pro-vicar for some years went to Holland for his episcopal consecration.
After Peter died many witnesses gave story after story in the Paramaribo process of Donders life about how marvelous a parish priest he was during those 14 years. They told of his tremendous energy and strength, especially during epidemics (for example, the yellow fever epidemic that struck in 1853 and took thousands of lives), his great love of children and their love for him, his ability to reach people stuck in sin, his long hours in the confessional, and his prayer life. Nicola Ferrante says in his life of Donders that he had a great ability to move people in his sermons because he too “was profoundly and obviously moved.”8
In 1874, looking back on his 14 years in Paramaribo, Donders wrote, “It was God who fired me with an intense desire to save souls; He Himself satisfied that desire by heaping apostolic work upon me . . . In all my trials He never denied me His gifts of patience or submission to His holy will.”9
THE PLANTATIONS
During those first 14 years as a parish priest in Paramaribo, Peter Donders also visited the plantations and the colony for those with leprosy at Batavia.
In the chronicles of the Surinam mission we read, “Father Donders was the first priest who, on taking up his residence in Paramaribo, undertook the systematic visitation of the plantations on the Lower Surinam and, on the Commewijne, and often also of those on the Upper Surinam and the Saramacca. Other priests, indeed, visited individual plantations, but the fact remains that Father Donders was the first to take an energetic initiative in this important work and to ensure its stability.”10
In 1843, his second year in Surinam, Peter began this work. In the beginning he was allowed into only 2 plantations. By 1852 he was allowed into 12. The number of Catholics amongst the "slaves” had grown to a total of 1145.
The plantations were located along the rivers that make up much of Surinam. In 1842 there were around 40 to 50 thousand “slaves” working on the plantations. Cattle, coffee, cotton, sugar, were just some of the crops and work the “slaves” took care of.
Peter was shocked at the living and working conditions of these people. Father Oomen, who worked with Donders and also in visiting the plantations, said that Father Donders was horrified at the condition of the "slaves" and his earnest wish was to see the practice abolished.11
In his book about slavery, The Shameful Trade, F. George Kay said, “The purchase or capture of some fifty million human beings month in and month out for a period of four centuries was perhaps the greatest crime against humanity ever perpetrated by Christendom, not least because those responsible for the most part saw no moral evil in treating men, women, and children as merchandise.”12
Instead of the word “merchandise” Donders used the word “cattle”. He wrote back to Holland, “If only the folk here would care for their slaves as well as those at home do for their cattle, how much better it would be.” He goes on, “If I were to tell you all that I myself have seen and heard – but I had better pass it over in silence, for it goes beyond all that one can imagine. I shudder when I think of it and with pity in my heart I am forced to cry out: `Woe, woe to Surinam on the Last Day, the Day of Judgment! Woe, a thousand times, woe to the Europeans, the slave owners, the administrators, the managers, the overseers and all those who rule over the slaves! O wretched men, who enrich themselves at the cost of the sweat and blood of the poor slaves who find no protection but in God.’”13
Like Donders, a Rev. John Newton also used the word “cattle” when he described what the slave trade did to those who were in it. He had first hand experience, because before his conversion, he was a captain of a slave ship. He said that it “renders most of those who are engaged in it too indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow creatures and that the necessity of treating the Negroes as like cattle gradually brings a numbness upon the heart.”14
What it did to the “slaves” was much worse. Many died on their forced “passage” from inside Africa to the coastal towns. They were forced to carry huge bundles of raw material to the coast like beasts of burden. Then for the “mid-passage” – the journey across the sea – they had to travel in slave ships that were filthy. The air was foul. On the floors and benches in the hold of the ship was blood, mucus and human excrement. The “slaves” were chained and tied. Many attempted escapes and were killed. Many went insane. Many committed suicide. 12% died on the journey. Another 25% died within a few months of arrival. The number of people who were forced into slavery vary from 5 million to 100 million.
Besides the uprooting and the passage to America, there was the horror of being sold and placed in a work camp or plantation. That’s where Donders came in. He fought government and plantation officials to improve the lot of the “slaves”. The slaves where Peter Donders visited came mainly from Ghana, Togo and Angola. A naturalist, a woman, from the 1700’s wrote the following about a certain plant found in Surinam, “This plant is used by the Indian women of Surinam to induce abortion. The Indian women of Surinam are very horribly treated by their white enslavers and do not wish to bear children who must live under equally horrible circumstances. The African women who come mainly from Guinea and Angola also use this plant to induce abortion and they may also use the seeds to induce suicide, since they believe their bodies will die in slavery but their souls will go back to live in Africa ... with their loved ones.”15
Besides the desire to improve their physical situation, Donders preached the good news of Jesus Christ to them. Their owners might be Christians in name; Donders tried to help the “slaves” become Christians in fact. The theology and theory of missions in past centuries has been criticized in various ways, for example, on the issue of “rice Christians” or one Christian denomination trying to get more converts than another Christian denomination or Protestant and Catholic missionaries at odds with each other. With regards to the slavery issue, there has been mention at times of Catholic nations justifying slavery on the grounds that it was a way “these people” could now become Christians. For example, the Portuguese are mentioned for making a big point to baptize slaves before taking them aboard ships to Brazil. Daniel Mannix in his history of the Atlantic slave trade, Black Cargoes, which he wrote in collaboration with Malcolm Cowley says, “In truth those wholesale baptisms must have been ludicrous affairs, yet they were not without meaning. They show that the Portuguese at least regarded Africans as human beings with souls to be saved, and they help to explain why slavery in Brazil, though as cruel as slavery in the British West Indies, was in some respects a more liberal institution. The English were not in the least concerned with the souls of their black cargoes, and, unlike the Portuguese they did not even send missionaries to Africa until the end of the eighteenth century; they sent only dry goods, gin and firearms. In their practical way, and with their genius for large-scale undertakings, they probably inflicted more sufferings on the Negroes than any other nation. On the other hand, they were also the nation that changed its heart, and did by far the most to abolish the trade.”16
Why did Peter Donders want to get into the plantations? Was it just to baptize people and make them Catholics? He wanted to bring them into the Catholic Church because he saw that as the road to their happiness. The fact that priests were so often refused into the plantations is a good sign. In his life of Donders, Kronenburg writes, “A refusal, and a blunt one at that, often resulted; and this for the simple reason that many of the slave-owners hated the Catholic religion, in which they saw a menace to their cruelty and greed, and especially to their immorality.”17
Donders was a match for them. He patiently kept coming back and back, over and over again, till the owners and public officials made improvements. He wore people down. And once he got his “foot in the door,” he moved fast. He would go to a plantation by boat and ask to speak to the “slaves”. If the man in charge said yes, Kronenburg tells us what happened next. “If the required permission was granted, he lost no time in availing himself of it. With the help of his men, he got his Mass-kit ashore, tidied up a hut, a shed, a loft – pulled in benches, fixed up an altar, and – the church was ready. Then the Bastiaan blew the horn to cease work, and the Negroes could be seen making their way along numerous paths and slowly massing in front of the improvised chapel. Father Donders awaited them with a smiling countenance and had a kindly word of welcome for them all. Notwithstanding the heat, he set to work at once. He instructed, exhorted, settled disputes, reconciled enemies, heard confessions, blessed marriages, baptized – and all this he did within the narrow compass of the stuffy cabin or loft.”18
Many excellent reports about this side of his work were given after Donders’ death. They are from doctors, non-Catholics, catechists, plantation owners, former slaves, boatmen, other priests, and others. They all mentioned his love and compassion and worry about the people enslaved on the plantations. He made lasting impressions on people. The boatmen tell of his long hours of prayer late into the night. They tell of his giving them his bread and wine. When a young boy, Gilbert Rups, was traveling with them, he cried out in his sleep, “Mamma, give me some water!” Peter naturally got up and gave him some water.19
“I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
naked and you clothed me.
I was ill and you comforted me,
in prison and you came to visit me”(Matthew 26:35-36).
APOSTLE TO THOSE WITH LEPROSY
Peter Donders is best know for his work with those who had leprosy.
At dinner one day in 1856, the Vicar Apostolic, Bishop Schepers asked his missionaries, “Which of you would like to volunteer for Batavia?” Peter Donders immediately responded, “I will.” This was no surprise, because he had volunteered at other times. This time he was accepted and was appointed to Batavia, the place people with leprosy were sent.
Father Donders was the perfect man for the job. It needed a “saint” with patience and compassion. Peter was to work there for close to 30 years. When he became a Redemptorist he left for a short time so as to make his novitiate. And in 1882 Bishop Schaap transferred him from Batavia to Paramaribo for a short time. Then he was sent to Coronie where he worked for about 2 years. But late in 1885, when he was 77 years old, Peter was sent back to Batavia where he died as he predicted he would.20
Batavia was set up by the government in 1824. Around 600 people with leprosy were rounded up from several towns, villages and plantations. Most were poor.
Around 1825, a Father Vanderweyden worked in Batavia and helped 120 converts become Catholics. He died in 1826 – perhaps overwhelmed not with leprosy, but with the moral and material decay of the place. In 1849, a Father Heininch served there. He was poisoned to death by a man who was angry with him because he challenged him to straighten out his life. A Father Magnee had to leave Batavia because he was overzealous. He “rubbed” too many people the wrong way. Bishop Groof had also worked at Batavia but had to leave. The misery of the place was too much for him.
Donders was able to handle the job and was excellent. An eyewitness, Laurence Doel said, “Father Donders was always with us in Batavia. He helped the lepers in all sorts of ways. He fetched water, tended their sores, swept out their houses and served them in other similar ways. He did things like these especially when there was a shortage of staff to look after the sick; and it was mainly due to his efforts that the government eventually provided nurses.”21 A Francine Buthil gave almost the same testimony after Donders death: “The people of Batavia loved Father Donders, not only because of the many kindnesses he showed us, such as bandaging our feet, carrying water and things like that, but because he helped us by his prayers and teaching.”22 John Kronenburg writes, “The evidence given by the lepers during the canonical process was most touching. With great warmth and effusiveness, they detailed the articles of food and clothing he deprived himself of and brought personally to their houses, `I saw him with my own eyes,’ said one, `put food and drink to the lips of the crippled.’ He did more: he fetched them water, chopped wood for them and carried it to their homes; and as long as there were no nurses in Batavia, he used to sweep out and clean up their miserable hovels, made their equally miserable beds, dress their wounds - no matter how hideous and disgusting these might be - and wash their linen and bandages. Kneeling on the floor, he would remove the chigoes from their feet and thus prevent swelling and intolerable itch. And while spending himself in doing them the most loathsome services, so little heed did he pay to his own safety, that many a time the doctors and officials thought it their duty to warn him. `Father,’ they would say, `take care, you are in danger of contracting the disease.’ `Not at all,’ he would reply with a pleasant smile, `there is nothing to fear, nothing really.’ And so saying, he went boldly, ahead. And yet this same man, who used to dress these horrible wounds every day without ever a thought for himself, felt such sympathy for the suffering that he could not summon up courage enough to be present at an amputation. `One day,’ one of the lepers relates, `I had to have a finger removed. The Father, unable to stand it, left the room; but the operation was scarcely over when he was back again to console me.’”23
We know a lot more about leprosy today than they did in 1856 when Peter Donders went to Batavia. In fact up until the last century many forms of skin diseases were labeled “leprosy” that were not leprosy. In the middle ages people with syphilis were often thought to have leprosy. In the Bible people who are described as having leprosy, probably didn’t have leprosy.
It wasn’t till 1874 – when Peter Donders was 64 years of age and working in Batavia — that the cause of leprosy was discovered. A Norwegian doctor, Gerhard Hansen, discovered that it was caused by a bacteria, Mycobacterium leprae. We now know that leprosy is not the highly communicable disease it was once thought to be. It is transmitted by prolonged, direct, skin-to-skin contact. But only 5% of those married to leprosy patients develop leprosy themselves. Leprosy is rare among doctors and nurses who care for leprosy patients. Donders was right when he said there was nothing to fear. It is believed that people with low resistance and who come in close contact with people who have a large amount of the germs are the ones apt to catch the disease. We also know that males are more likely to catch it than females – the ratio being 3 to 1. Children are more apt to catch it than adults.
And today people are not isolated as they once were to places like Batavia in Surinam or Molokai in Hawaii. Sulfur drugs, for example, Sulfone and Dapsone are used. They have been found to be quite successful in the treatment of the 2 forms of leprosy - the one that attacks the skin (lepromatous or cutaneous leprosy) and the other type that attacks the nerves (tuberculoid or neural leprosy).
In 1948, the International Congress of Leprosy passed a resolution to drop the word “leper” because it carries a definite stigma. They resolved to use the term “leprosy patient” for a person having this disease.
Much of this was not known when Peter was working with leprosy patients. It must have been a horrible experience to be classified “a leper” and then sent to a place like Batavia. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said that the worse disease in the world – a disease that will always be with us – is the disease of being unwanted. If there is any physical disease that would make a person feel unwanted, it had to be leprosy. Many of the people who had it ended up looking “repulsive” with curled up fingers and toes and lionlike faces. Peter Donders did his best to make the people at Batavia feel wanted and feel wanted every day.
THE REDEMPTORISTS
In July of 1865 the “mission” of Surinam was handed over to the Redemptorists. It was a good move because in the 17 years before their arrival only 5 priests came to Surinam and in the 17 years after their arrival the Redemptorists were able to send 27 priests.
On November 27, 1863, Bishop Schepers died. He had worked in Surinam for 33 years. His successor, the Very Rev. Father Meurkens, realized that dependency on volunteers of secular priests from Holland was too “iffy”. So when he went to Holland, he took a trip also to Rome. He reported to the Propaganda about Surinam. The result was that the Vicariate Apostolic of Surinam was handed over to the Redemptorists -- and specifically the Dutch Province.
In 1865, the Dutch Provincial, Father Swinkels, was appointed Vicar Apostolic and was consecrated a bishop. On March 26th, 1866, Bishop Swinkels, 2 other Redemptorist priests and one brother, arrived at Paramaribo. The Catholics gave them a tremendous welcome. Father Donders was not at the celebration. He was at Batavia.
One month later Peter was able to go to the capital to pay his respects to the new bishop and also to seek admission into the Redemptorists. Swinkels gave himself and Peter a few days to think it over. The bishop asked around about Donders and found out that he was a “saint”. A few days later he admitted Donders into the Redemptorists as a postulant.
Peter had to go back to Batavia till a priest could be sent to take his place while he made his novitiate. Father Van der Aa, one of two new Redemptorists, was sent and arrived there on October 15, 1866. Donders was now free to begin his novitiate training to become a Redemptorist.
The last remaining secular priest in Surinam, a Father John Romme also asked and received permission to become a Redemptorist. After Donders’ death, Romme wrote to a Father Oomen, “I freely declare that he (Donders) was always and in everything a source of edification to me. I also gratefully recall that after the good God I owe my vocation to the Congregation mainly to him. Four of five months after Bishop Swinkels’ arrival I heard that he had been received and I began to think seriously about it myself.”24
Peter Donders had been reading the life of the founder of the Redemptorists, St. Alphonsus Liguori. Alphonsus had the dream of one day going to the foreign missions to serve the poorest and most abandoned. He never fulfilled that dream, but his priests have. Moreover that was exactly Peter Donders’ vision and that was what he was already doing: serving the poorest and most abandoned on the foreign missions.
On November 1st, 1866, Donders and Romme received the Redemptorist habit from Bishop Swenkels and began their novitiate. It is interesting to note that Bishop Swenkels (like Alphonsus and also Saint John Neumann) had also been a secular priest before becoming a Redemptorist. The novitiate was supposed to last a year. It didn’t. It was supposed to be a year of prayer, reflection and quiet. Like St. John Neumann, Donders and Romme had “to work their way through their novitiate.” There was too much work to do and such a shortage of priests.
Their novice master, Bishop Swinkels, soon discovered that he had 2 very holy men with him — priests who had a deep sense of the need for work, sacrifice and prayer. In fact Swinkels wrote to the Redemptorist superior in Rome and got permission to shorten their novitiate. Swinkels wrote the following description of Donders, “His health is sound and his constitution remarkably tough, proved by all sorts of holy excesses. In outward appearance he is like the Cure of Ars. He is a man of short stature, thin, white hair, without teeth and a little stooped. He is young at heart. He is hard working, ready for any task, cheerful in the community, in conduct indistinguishable from all the rest. He has the spirit of our Congregation in its fullness. His memory is good, and his judgment sound and enlightened. He knows enough of the profane sciences as if of advantage to the Negroes and Indians.”25
After their profession on June 24, 1867, Donders was sent back to Batavia to relieve the 2 priests who were serving there while Peter made his 8 month novitiate. A few weeks later he was joined by a Father Gerard Verbeek C.SS.R. For the next 15 years Batavia was his home and except for a space of about 2 years Donders had another Redemptorist Father as a companion.26
Donders was now a member of a religious order — an order who had earlier refused him. It made quite a difference in his life — giving him companionship, traditions, and a greater meaning in his life. Various letters that he wrote bring out the joy he felt in becoming a Redemptorist.
In 1874 he wrote to his Redemptorist Provincial, “From the day on which, by God’s grace, I was received into the Congregation, I did not think I ever passed a day, or even an hour, without experiencing great joy in my holy vocation and in common life ... except for an odd trial or temptation which I got over, by God’s grace.”27
In May of 1875, 8 years after becoming a Redemptorist, he wrote, “I can never thank God enough for having called me to the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. May the God of all bounty grant me the grace to live as a true Redemptorist and to persevere until death. Daily I ask for this from His mercy, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our beloved Mother.”28
Kronenburg says that he wrote many letters in this vein to the Redemptorists back in Holland and to the students in the Redemptorist seminary at Wittem. He never met them personally, but more and more he identified himself with them.29
Father Oomen, the Redemptorist Provincial, in his notes from the canonical visitation to Surinam in 1882 wrote, “Father Donders spoke much with me on spiritual topics, and without any affectation and with utter artlessness. In particular, he could not say enough of his love for the works of St. Alphonsus, on account of their unction and their great simplicity. He spoke with the same affection of our Institute, of its work and its growth.”30
THE INDIANS AND THE BUSH NEGROES
Besides taking care of those with leprosy in Batavia, Peter Donders also had a deep feeling for the Indians and bush Negroes deep in the forests of Surinam.
The vision of Isaiah, Jesus and also Alphonsus, was his vision,
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me;
therefore, he has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring glad tidings
to the poor,
to proclaim liberty to captives,
Recovery of sight to the blind
and release to prisoners,
To announce a year of favor for the Lord”(Luke 4:18-19).
When the Europeans began settling in Surinam and the rest of Guyana, many of the Indians refused to be their “slaves”. To survive many escaped deep into the forests and jungles of Surinam.
Many blacks also escaped into the interior. In his book, Black Cargoes, Daniel Mannix writes, “There were insurrections in Surinam all through the middle years of the eighteenth century and the escaped slaves - called `bush Negroes’ or `Djukas’ have retained their independence to this day.”31 In his book, The Slave Community, John Blassingame gives some of the reasons why escape was easier than in the United States. Slaves outnumbered the Europeans by at least 20 to 1 in Surinam, while in the States the ratio was much less. There was public knowledge in Surinam that slaves had successfully revolted and had communities in the forests. The army was weak. And lastly there were constant importations of slaves into Latin America, 60 to 70% of whom were males. New slaves wanted to escape more than slaves that were broken.32
The various biographies of Peter Donders tell of his many trips into the jungles in search of these Indians and bush Negroes. He was almost 60 when he began this work in a much more organized way. Because he had more nurses, catechists, and now another priest at Batavia, he had a chance to “sail” into the wilderness.
In the Batavia chronicles we can find a long detailed description of the Indians of Surinam written by Peter Donders. On reading it one gets the impression that Donders studied not only their language, but also their customs and the specific differences between the 3 main tribes of Indians in Surinam: the Caribs, the Arrowaks and the Warros.
He describes the Caribs as the least civilized of the three. But he also writes, “The Caribs, then with God’s help, without which we can do nothing, we could make something out of them.”33 Today they are all Catholics due to work of people like Donders.
Some of the trips took 25 to 30 hours and more. He and his helpers had to travel hundreds of miles, through swamps, rivers, with bugs, snakes, and all kinds of dangers surrounding them.
Donders was not only strong, but he was fearless. Often he stood up to threats of death. He challenged the people of the jungle whenever he saw superstition, alcoholism, and other problems that break down life. He baptized, preached, instructed, married, and helped people all through the bush.
In John Kronenburg’s life of Donders, we have the following portion of a letter written by Bishop Schaap to Mgr. Capri, the Internuncio at The Hague. It is dated December 1, 1875. “Father Donders is the man God is making use of to bring those poor Indians to Himself. Their conversion is singularly arduous work, and for all that, the Father has baptized five hundred of them and blessed sixty marriages. The extraordinary nature of his success can be estimated only by one who has lived in the country and seen its nomadic population at close quarters, and who has become acquainted in detail with the appalling difficulties that confront the missionary before he can reach these children of the forest and keep them together on one spot for any length of time.”34
Earlier, Bishop Schaap, had asked Father Donders about his hopes and plans for the Indians. He copied out Donders response to these 2 questions that he asked him: “First, are there well-founded hopes for the conversion of the Indians of Surinam?” and “Secondly, in the event of such hopes existing, what methods are best calculated to bring about their realization?”
Donders answered the first question this way, “After having weighed everything before God and asked His light in a matter of such moment, I think I am justified in giving the following answer: Yes, there does exist a well-founded hope, inasmuch as there does not exist the slightest doubt, as far as the Arrowakkas are concerned. For, after all, these people are nearly all baptized and married; we have already fifty communicants among them, and nearly all are leading good lives. The Caribs also give me grounds for hoping that they will improve.”
To the second question Donders answered, “By getting them together as much as possible and then having them instructed by good catechists or schoolmasters. It would be their business to inculcate on them the practice of their religious duties, and, in particular, that of prayer. They would likewise teach Catechism and accustom them to sanctify the Sunday, both morning and evening. They would also prepare the children for confession and communion, and do the same for the adults. In the Tibiti district, for instance, where the catechist or schoolmaster has been at work only for the past seven or eight months, I have baptized and shall have still to baptize more children and adults than I had to baptize for the past three years; about thirty children are under instruction there; even old men attend the school, and yet the Caribs on the Tibiti are the worst of all and are as different from the Arrowakkas as chalk from cheese. The Caribs on the Wayombo also are crying out for a teacher, and, in the hope of getting one, those amongst them who are scattered are now willing to live together. Even men of advanced years and old men are beginning to join up with the rest, and numbers of them are anxious to be instructed. If only instruction could be given in this way, we should have a well grounded hope of working with much fruit and of one day winning them all for God. The greater number – five hundred, exclusive of a few individuals — are already baptized; about sixty couples are married, and there are fifty communicants, not counting those baptized by Father Romme. With God’s help we may one day be able to establish one or two stations. This is what I think, before God, I should write to you on the subject. Moreover, the main point is to pray much for their conversion. P. Donders, C.SS.R.”35
In October of 1886, at the age of 76, Peter Donders made his last trip to see the Indians and bush Negroes. It was a journey of 19 days. He was stationed back in Batavia at the time.
HIS DEATH
During his last few years, besides being stationed at Batavia, he was appointed to the community at Paramaribo. He was only there for a short time when he was sent to the mission at Coronie. So from 1883 to 1885 Donders was away from his beloved Batavia.
In his last sermon before he left in 1883 he told his people “We are all under the Bishop’s authority and must obey. However, even though the Bishop is taking me away from here, I promise you in God’s name that I shall die among you. In the day of resurrection I shall be among the lepers to face God’s judgment.”36
In 1885 he was stationed back in Batavia again and that is where he died. On December 31st, 1886 he preached for the last time. It was New Year’s Eve and that night he suffered terrific pains.
In his excellent and valuable collection of material and documents on Peter Donders, Samuel Boland, C.SS.R., tells us that `according to the necrology written by Father Bossers, the trouble was in his kidneys, and it gradually became worse, making it clear to everyone that the end had come.” Samuel Boland then gives this excerpt from the necrology, “During the night of 5th-6th January he himself asked for the Holy Sacraments, and Father John (Bakker) at once did as he asked. On this occasion he made two requests of his confrere, first in his name to ask the pardon of the people if he had offended them in any way, and secondly to tell them how sad he was at the sinful lives of many of them in spite of his repeated pleading. Rev. Father John fulfilled this charge with great emotion during the Mass of the Epiphany. Apart from that occasion Father Donders spoke very little during the illness, never complaining, always satisfied with whatever was given him. In this way, fully resigned to God’s Will and with his thoughts filled with his Jesus and the things of heaven, he continued to suffer without losing consciousness until 3:30 in the afternoon of Friday, 14th January 1887. In that moment the good, zealous, devout and exemplary old man gave up his soul into the hands of his heavenly Father.”37
“The next day,” according to the same necrology by Father Bossers, “his body, clothed in the habit, lay in the church during Mass, which was attended by the faithful. In the afternoon he was buried with as much ceremony as was possible in the presence of the entire population of Batavia. The sacred rites were performed by Fathers A. de Kuyper and J. Bakker. Father de Kuyper had arrived the day before, an hour after the Father’s death, bringing with him a trainee doctor for the hospital named Batemburg. At the burial he edified all present by his sincere words on the holy life and blessed death of the venerable old man.”
Then he adds, “Whoever knew the saintly man called him blessed. Would that our end be like this. His body was buried beside the grave of Rev. G. Heininnk, who had died in Batavia in 1849.”38
CONCLUSION
Peter Donders’ body remained in that cemetery till July 26, 1900 when it was placed in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Paramaribo. On January 21st, 1921 it was moved into the Cathedral itself, where it lies at the foot of St. Joseph’s altar.
After his death, the story of this holy man, who lived 77 years, 2 months, and 13 days slowly spread. First it was by word of mouth. Then like the gospel stories, incidents from his life were written down. Slowly veneration and pilgrimages were made to both Paramaribo and to his home town of Tilburg, Holland.
The process for his beatification began in 1900. The decree for the introduction of his cause was signed in Rome on May 14, 1913. The decree of herocity of virtues was signed on March 25, 1945. And on Sunday May 23, 1982, Pope John Paul II declared Peter Donders “Blessed”.
POSTSCRIPT
In his life of Peter Donders, Nicola Ferrante, C.SS.R., presents 5 of the 40 or 50 favors and miracles that were presented in the official record of Donders’ Cause. The fifth cure, that of Louis John Westland, was the one that the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of the Saints approved and the one declared miraculous by Pope John Paul II on February 24, 1979.
Father Ferrante describes the case as follows:
The Instantaneous and Complete Cure of an Acute Osteomyelitis of the distal Metaphisis of the Right Femur.
“This is the case submitted to the Sacred Congregation of the Causes cf. Saint: for the beatification of Venerable Donders. It concerns a baby, Louis John Westland, born in Tilburg, Holland on April 17, 1928. On August 1, 1929 he was stricken with a severe swelling of the knee. An x-ray taken on August 22, revealed a deterioration of the bone corresponding to the interior femoral condil on the right side. The swelling was lanced on August 27 and the wound was dressed daily. When no improvement resulted, new x-rays were taken on November 5. These confirmed the continuing condition of Osteomyelitis: ‘There is still inflammation of the bone — in fact it is more visible now than previously.’ As a consequence of the inflammation one can discern with sufficient certitude a small fragment of decayed bone. With a view to removing this fragment and the cause of the inflammation the doctors gathered at the child’s bedside for consultation a little after 9:30 p.m. on November 6. The child’s grandfather, an eyewitness, tells us: the wound looked worse than ever, more than an inch long; the inner opening (the fistula) was about a quarter of an inch wide. The doctor scheduled an operation for November 12. Meanwhile the tiny leg was wrapped in a regular bandage with moist compresses and enclosed in a tube of cardboard.
“In the morning of November 7 the parents awoke to find the baby already standing in its crib — the bandage off to one side and the tube on the other. The wound was closed and dry. In the father’s words: `We tried every way we could to see if our child had any pain — pressing and pinching, twisting and turning the leg, but he showed no pain or discomfort at all. In fact he slipped out of my hands and scampered away from me.’
“Within seven or eight hours an open inch-long wound had completely closed — a feat normally requiring six to eight days. Further, a bone fragment was eliminated which normally required an operation or the passage of considerable time.
“Louis’ parents have always attributed his cure to Father Donders’ intercession. Actually the father had promised that if the child were cured he would permit him to follow in Donders’ missionary footsteps.”39
NOTES
1 Samuel Boland, C.SS.R “Peter Donders As His Contemporaries Saw Him” in Spicilegium Historicum, Congregationis SSmi Redemptoris, Annus XXVII, 1979, Fasc. 2, (Rome, Collegium S. Alfonsi de Urbe), pp. 381.
2 Nicholas Govers, C.SS.R., Life of the Venerable Peter Donders, translated from the Dutch by Rev. Anthony Nuyten, (New York, 1925), p. 12. I have what appears a personal translation of this book and it is located at the Provincial House, Shore Road, Brooklyn.
3 Govers, p. 12.
4 John Carr, C.SS.R., A Fisher of Men, The Venerable Peter Donders, C.SS.R., (Fresno, California, Academy Library Guild, 1953) pp. 43 - 44.
5 John Baptist Kronenburg, C.SS.R., An Apostle of the Lepers, The Ven. Peter Donders, C.SS.R., translated from the French Version of Leon Roelandts, C.SS.R., by John Carr, C.SS.R., (London: Sands and Company, 1930), pp. 51 - 52.
6 Kronenburg, p. 60
7 Kronenburg, p. 60.
8 Nicola Ferrante, C.SS.R., Peter Donders, Apostle to the Lepers, translated from the Italian by William Nayden, C.SS.R. This is in the hands of W. Nayden, p. 18.
9 Ferrante, p. 18
10 Kronenburg, pp. 88 - 89.
11 Boland, p. 385.
12 F. George Kay, The Shameful Trade, (South Brunswick and New York, A.S. Barns and Company, 1967) p. 1.
13 Govers, p. 37.
14 Daniel P. Mannix, in collaboration with Malcolm Cowley, Black Cargoes: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1518-1865 . (Penguin Books, NY, 1962) p. x
15 Counter, “The African Bush People in South America,” in The Washington Post, January 2, 1982, p. C 6.
16 Mannix, p. xiii.
17 Kronenburg, p. 82.
18 Kronenburg, pp. 82 - 83.
23 Kronenburg, pp. 96 - 97.
24 Boland, p. 388 .
25 Boland, p. 389.
26 Boland, p. 412.
27 Kronenburg, p. 116.
28 Kronenburg, p. 116.
24 Boland, p. 388 .
25 Boland, p. 389.
26 Boland, p. 412.
27 Kronenburg, p. 116.
28 Kronenburg, p. 116.
29 Kronenburg, p. 116.
30 Kronenburg, p. 117.31 Mannix, pp. 53 - 54.
32 John Blassingame, The Slave Community, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972) pp. 124 - 125.
33 Boland, pp. 420 - 421.
34 Kronenburg, pp. 220 - 221.
35 Cf. Kronenburg, pp. 216 - 217.
36 Boland, p. 390.
37 Boland, p. 394.
38 Boland, p. 414.
39 Ferrante, pp. 51 - 52.
