Welcoming Pope Leo XIV, Telling Our Story in Peru
As Medical Mission Sisters across the world welcome North America’s first Pope, Leo XIV, and hear about the years he spent as a missionary in Peru, Sister Pat Gootee recalls her time, pioneering the Society’s first medical missions in the Peruvian Province of Caylloma. In the mid-1970s, she went to work as a nurse and a midwife in a remote, rural area, high up in the Andes mountains, at an altitude of between 3,200 to 4,500 metres. Every morning, she recalls taking two buckets and waiting for the snow to melt, high in the mountains, in order to fill them with the water she needed to survive for the day. She recalls, with good humour, how, when other Medical Mission Sisters came to stay with her, they often suffered from altitude sickness and didn’t stay long - but happily, this didn’t affect her.
The following description of the local area is found in the Society’s Archives: “The Province of Caylloma is generally a rural area. The people are cattle raisers or farmers. They are mostly of the Indian race and have retained their own language, customs and dress. Faced with the existing conditions of poverty and suffering, marginalisation and injustice, in which the rural people and workers live, we opt to work for the liberation of the Pueblo and the building of the kingdom of God.” It is also noted that some of the local population worked for a multi-national project designed to irrigate the desert of Majes and make the land cultivable, whilst other workers were employed mining silver, copper, lead and tin in privately owned mines.
Through her initial pastoral work, Sister Pat and her pastoral team served a population of around 50,000 people, aiming to organise energies and actions that returned power to the Pueblo. For example, she set about training many volunteer health promoters among the Pueblo which was in line with Peru’s national plan. At all times, in celebrating living the Gospel, she remembers being very careful not to isolate or alienate the Pueblo population from their actual situation.
During her time in Peru, Sister Pat attended to many births as a midwife. The local community knew exactly where she lived and would knock on her door to fetch help, when it was needed. Sometimes, a medical emergency was also brought to her attention, like the day that she drove down the mountains to take an expectant mother, who was bleeding heavily, to hospital in Arequipa to have emergency surgery. She instructed the woman’s husband to hold his wife up under her arms in the car or the woman risked bleeding to death during the journey. She was bleeding from placenta previa but, thanks to Sister Pat’s speedy intervention and attentive driving skills, the woman's life was saved.
In 1979, Sister Pat moved to live in an urban area in Arequipa in 1979 and here, she cared for a blind girl called Simona. Sadly, at the time of Simona’s birth, which was not attended by Sister Pat but only by local women, who were drunk when it happened, accidentally, cleaning materials damaged the new baby’s eyes and Simona has had to live with blindness all of her life. As she grew up, Sister Pat kept in touch with and cared for the child, who would come and visit her at home. On one occasion, Simona told Sister Pat that she wanted to go to school, like other children did, and Sister Pat helped this to happen. Simona’s school years were happy ones and she went on to study at university, again thanks to Sister Pat’s support. However, after she graduated, when Sister Pat tried to gain local employment for her, the local bishop was not so sympathetic and refused to help them. Today, Simona makes a small living by selling candies on local bus routes. The two friends stay in touch although Sister Pat now lives back in Philadelphia.
Today, in 2025 in Peru, eco-theologian and Medical Mission Sister Dr Birgit Weiler, is working on environmental issues and examining how the Church should relate to indigenous peoples in the Amazon region - as you can see in our video, described by journalist Barbara Fraser: