Father Pedro’s Biography

Pedro Pablo Opeka was born on the 29th of June 1948 in Argentina, in San Martín, a suburb of Buenos Aires, a welcoming land without frontiers. His father, Luis Opeka, and his mother, Maria Marolte, are from Slovenia. In 1945 Luis Opeka, known for his Christian convictions, was arrested by Tito’s communists and condemned to be shot (the regime of Tito in Yugoslavia compelled Christians to abjure their faith. Many of them chose the exile in Argentina). He managed to escape and flee to Italy, where he met Maria, his future wife, before setting off to Argentina.

Pedro grew up in the streets of Buenos Aires. When he was 6, on the day of Good Friday, his mother saw him going out with a wooden sword:

“Where are you going?”
“I am going to look for those who have killed Jesus”.

All the spirit of Pedro was oriented towards truth and justice. Luis, his father, is a bricklayer. Pedro’s vitality as a child led him to bring him along on the building sites when there was no school. He learnt the job…

He became a boarder at the seminary for Lazarists fathers. He enjoyed studying, football, and the Gospel. The personality of Jesus fascinated him, the love of poor people, the simple lifestyle, attracted him.

He found an echo of his own life in that of Saint Vincent de Paul. The years of training went on and confirmed the call that he had felt at 14: he would become a priest…

At 20, in 1968, he went to further his training in Ljubliana, in Yugoslavian Slovenia, land of dreams and of exceptional natural beauty, the land of his parents. But very soon, his enthusiasm was dampened by the uniformity of the communist regime, which hardly tolerated Catholics. He became more and more impatient. Two years were enough. He asked his superiors for a break and a trip to Madagascar, where he would work as a bricklayer… in the Lazarist parishes. He was convinced that he would become a missionary, but he did not want to go back to finish his studies in Ljubliana. He will go to Paris instead, in the Catholic Institute…

His passion for football made him one of the pillars of a team in the Parisian suburbs. Argentinean, hero of the team, he earned the first page of a sport newspaper in 1974…

He met the Taizé Community, travelled all over Europe... On the 28th of September 1975 he was ordained priest in Buenos Aires. He was sent immediately to Madagascar, as a priest in the parish of Vangaindrano, on the South-Eastern coast of the island. There, he started to act. The ideas of Dom Helder Camara fascinated him. He created basic communities where decisions were shared… Vangaindrano was a very poor area. Pedro did not go away, he went amongst the marginalised people. He worked with them in the rice fields with five young missionaries from Slovania: Janez, Rado, Jankc, Tone and Rok. To fight efficiently against poverty, you need to give the example. Knife in hand, with mud up to the waist, they worked in the rice fields, fighting against mice and bacterias… Fevers weakened Father Pedro, he was constrained to various recoveries in hospital.

In 1989, thanks to his good results with youngsters, his superiors called him to Antananarivo for the training of seminarists. Heart-broken, he left the bush. Another story was about to start. Pedro could not remain indifferent to the marginal people scattered all across the capital. Without the support of anybody, only a few friends, he started a dialogue with the marginalised people of the streets of Antananarivo, showing them respect.

He thus started a long work of rehabilitation as they slowly gained back their dignity of human beings. Behind the fatality of marginalisation, Father Pedro saw the wounded souls of the families, the children. Despite the violence, the discouragements, the failures, this long work of patience and abnegation and humility bearded fruit.

Today Akamasoa sustains nearly twenty thousands people, nine thousands children, of which seven thousands go to school, namely, four thousands families. Father Pedro, the son of a bricklayer from Buenos Aires, has succeeded in progressively helping them and building up their houses, their schools, clinics, and centres for training and production.

Jobs have been created, thanks to the stone and gravel quarries, to the craft and embroidery workshops, to a compost centre next to the rubbish tip to divide and sort the rubbish, to the jobs in agriculture and construction (bricklayers, carpenters, cabinet makers, operators and street pavers). Thousand of families have learnt again to live in a community, cutting for good the infernal circle of poverty. Parents at work and children at school have finally found a future, thanks to a courage and perseverance based on sharing, love and respect of the human being. Where political programmes have failed, the programme of the heart has succeeded, and has brought blooms to the desert of these broken lives.

These people have learnt again the rules of life in community: the respect for others, hygiene, participation to collective tasks and meetings.

Extract from:

Abbé Pierre, Father Pedro
Per un mondo di giustizia e di pace
A cura di Anne e Daniel Facérias
Editorial Jaca Book SpA, Milano, Giugno 2005
[pag. 150-153] Translation from Cécile Dreiss