Father Raúl, the “angel” of the Panama Police

Father Raúl has a position within the National Police of Panama where he accompanies the uniformed men in their fears and is even with them in the most dangerous operations.

This priest is well known and loved in his country, Panama. And he is the highest ranking priest in the police force. Raul Ernesto de Leon Mendoza He was born on March 19, 1977 in a city called Chitré, a small city, and there he has lived his 45 years.

He has been a priest for 11 years and has had the opportunity to work in four parishes. He is currently a parish priest in Parita, a colonial parish from 1649. Below is the interview he gave to Aleteia:

-How and where does the call to the priestly vocation arise?

I lived in Chitré, in Llano Bonito, a neighborhood where we played a lot of baseball and I lived next to the church. I came to the parish when I was seven years old, to a youth group and they kicked me out because I was just a child. And I remember that the priest Seconda Spanish priest, told them to leave me, that I was going to get tired soon and I was going to leave… and well, 33 years have passed and I haven’t gotten tired.

I lived alone with my grandmother, I didn’t live with my mom or dad and this priest became a paternal reference for my lifebut also all his work, especially the work with young people, caught my attention.

We did something that today is difficult and illogical to find: we met every night, from Monday to Monday, and the weekends were when we had more influx. All of this marked my life. I was an altar boy from a very young age and all this was mixed with a desire, since I was a child, to want to be a priest. This priest marked my life in many aspects. He died years later in a traffic accident.

I have inherited everything he did, the youth congress and the Charismatic Renewal. Here in Panama I am the national advisor to the Charismatic Renewal and we hold the national meeting, where we bring together 10,000 young people. This priest taught us a lot about Teresian spirituality and we are very disciples of Saint Teresa of Jesus, and Teresa was the wanderer, she did not stop and she had every desire to renew. That desire of Saint Teresa led that priest to be as he was and me as I am.

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-Did you have your dark side, any conversion?

They say that I have an imam with young people, but they come to me because, when we talk, I tell them «what you are telling me, I also lived it».

And now that you ask me about that dark side, in short, i had it too. I was only raised by my grandmother, she is a woman that I love very much, and she is a woman who was raised very harshly and that is how she raised us. So, the gestures and feelings in my house, it was something strange. Without a father and without a mother, my affective deficiencies were many. When I was growing up, I was seeing other things.

I entered another school where my classmates were older, partiers, partiers and I thought I was losing my life for being involved in the church. It was there that I started bump after bump and at that time I almost didn’t finish high school. The teachers talked to me and in the end I ended up graduating with a deep emptiness.

I got into a private university, because it was my way of punishing my mom, who had abandoned me. We were poor, but my mother had a pension because she had an accident at work, she lost her right hand and they compensated her.

But she had never given me anything and making her pay for college was my way of punishing her. When I go to university I realize that the atmosphere is cool, that people who have money have a good time, but my pocket was not cool. And that’s when I made the most important decision of my life, which was to drop out of college.

My mom kept sending me the money for the monthly payment and I kept living the rich life, but that’s called stealing; I stole from my mom and started living the rich life.

At any time in life this story embarrasses you. At this moment, that is part of my life, it is part of what God wanted to form in my life. Well, my mom died without knowing that I had done that. He died very young, at the age of 37, from a bacterial disease.

From there I began to stumble and stumble in life and I met a girl who was the one who smoothed out my life a bit. We were dating for six and a half years, a lasting relationship with plans, but when one has existential voids, those things surface and in the end the relationship ended. I always wondered why my life was so empty. I was in the parish, I was the animator of the congress with the young people, and even so I felt the emptiness.

For things in life, I ended up getting into a meeting of Youth Ministry, something to which I was allergic, and I ended up occupying several positions, among them, as the first coordinator of youth ministry. Then I went to Colombia to study Youth Ministry without knowing that what God was interested in was that he could have a moment alone with me.

PANAMA

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I arrived and stayed in the house of the priests of the House of God, then, the Lord was preparing all the way. When we are in the diploma course they brought a nun from Argentina and I felt that everything she said was for me.

I had a fight with the Lord because I felt that at that moment he came to complicate my life, but that was when I decided to say “up to here, it is time for you to assume what God wants for you”. I came back, I talked to the bishop, to the priest and I spent a year preparing my life and fixing all the loose ends that I had had, and that’s when I decided to go to the seminary.

People bet that I would not last, but God was building my life and always gave me a word that said: “There where you are weakest, is where I show my strength the most.”

So I studied the first three years in the seminary of my diocese. The bishop saw fit to send me to Bogotá and there I studied my four years of theology. And finally, on July 23, 2011, I am ordained a priest. God took it upon himself to repair many things.

He knows that there are many things in our lives that need to be fixed. I was ordained on July 23, which was a Saturday like this year, and my first mass as a priest was on July 24, and my mom died on July 24.

God gave me the possibility that my first mass as a priest could be celebrated for my mother. So, it was a beautiful process that God gave me.

Regarding my mom, right now I’m finishing a degree in psychology, it’s not that I’m passionate about psychology, but I am paying the debt to my mom and that title belongs to her.

They have offered me all the scholarships, but I told them no, because I have to pay for this out of my pocket, because I have to repay all the money that I stole.

PANAMA

Spicy Pooch

-How is it that you become chaplain of the national police?

I came to the chaplaincy because the chaplain who was before me was sent to study in Rome. They proposed it to me and I told them that they had to discuss it with the bishop. They talk to the bishop, the bishop agrees and I come to the institution as chaplain.

We do not have our own bishopric to work with the police, but for the police we represent a police officer and they, as a matter of deference, equate us in a degree of officiality, to the rank of major.

Because of a problem I have with my knee, I was assigned an officer as an assistant, Sergeant Eden Rodriguezan officer that no one wanted and then everyone wanted his job.

In the World Youth Day (WYD) in Panama I had the opportunity to meet the pope. Other than that, Sergeant Eden, my assistant and escort driver, is a bricklayer, builder, welder, electrician, and with him we managed to make a lot of progress with the project of having a chapel at the police base, a chapel erected to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In the chaplaincy I have two police units working full time with me.

-Why did you choose the Virgin of Guadalupe for your chapel?

The director studied in Mexico and told me he was going to go to Mexico and bring the painting, and he did. The chapel is called Virgen de Guadalupe and we celebrate her feast on December 12th.

PANAMA

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Do you spend a lot of time with the police?

If we play soccer, volleyball, table tennis, I assist them in their needs, I accompany them. Right now in my country we are experiencing very difficult situations, there is a confrontation between the police and the people. But every morning I go to the barracks, I talk to them, I tell them that I know they have to reprimand, but never forget charity. Sometimes they go up to 15 days without seeing their loved ones and it is a tense and difficult situation for them.

But in the midst of everything, it is a job that I am passionate about and I like to do the Gospel with them, everywhere. We also support them when they have an accident and do not receive a salary, we support them with food. There are several works that we do with them.

How important is it for a priest to be with a human being who is at risk of being killed?

I understand that the Gospel says that no one has greater love than the one who gives life… And these units give their lives to defend us, and they are the things that people do not understand, they do not understand the degree of dedication. That part is what we have to work on, because in the end the policeman ends up feeling unappreciated.

PANAMA

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-They also had a special retreat for police officers, an Emmaus retreat.

It was a very beautiful experience. We took 18 policemen from Emmaus Retreat, the police environment is harsh, but when you see the police officers breaking down, crying, asking for forgiveness in these retreats, this is really the answer to the life of these brothers of ours.

We also did the sacrament of marriage for five of them. We did it in style, it was a big party. It is part of what God does. Currently we have the children in first communion and confirmation, children of the sworn and non-sworn police officers.

We have also done baptisms, we have done a lot of service. The world without God is chaos.

Do the police entrust themselves to God?

I don’t know about all the actions they do. But sometimes they tell me “Father, we have a difficult operation, give us your blessing.” We have to show the life of God in what we do.

PANAMA

Spicy Pooch

-How would you like to end your life? Have you thought about martyrdom?

I believe that martyrdom is a gift, but the important thing is that one can be a martyr in everything he does, and the martyr is faithful to a cause, he is faithful to Jesus. Many times we have our martyrdoms without the need to die because we have to remain faithful to Jesus, despite everything, even though one of us messes it up.

Whenever a priest is libidinous, the rest of us became martyrs, and we have to bear witness so that people see the project of the Kingdom of God more credible. I may be 90 years old, but I will never become old, my body may accumulate years, but my spirit will be young.

The day I die, I am going to die with a big smile, because I am going to see God face to face. I know that my mother will receive me and will take me by the hand to the presence of God, which for me is the greatest aspiration.

VENEZUELA



Father Raúl, the “angel” of the Panama Police