Jesuit Journeys
Spring/Summer 2005

BY Phil Nero

Fr. Phil Pick, SJ at the microphone in earlier times.

The missionary spirit in the Wisconsin Province has a long and varied tradition deeply rooted in such places as eastern Africa, Korea, India, Latin America, and several Native American Indian reservations.

Many men have served in these places over the 50-year history of the Province, and it is difficult to cite one man over others. However, no one has been at it longer or done it any better, or with any greater compassion for God’s poor than Fr. Phil Pick, SJ.

In fact, in the days leading up to Easter this year, Fr. Phil Pick, SJ was off again traveling 25 miles from his home in Yoro to the remote villages of Honduras to spend Holy Week in a distant area called Locomapa. There he celebrated Mass and tended to the spiritual needs of others – something he has been doing with a joyful, loving spirit for the vast majority of his Jesuit life and more than half of his 89 years.

“I don’t do much traveling anymore, but when Holy Week comes around, we all pitch in,” he says with a youthful energy that belies his years. He made the trip to Locomapa by car, 61 years after his first mission experience when he usually journeyed farther and slower – often by mule.

Fr. Pick’s first mission experience came in 1944, teaching at St. John’s College in Belize for three years during his regency. He returned to Corozal in 1952, two years after his ordination. He served in myriad regions and cities until 1966 when he moved on to Honduras for another 10 years.

He spent three years in the U.S. (1976-78) to take a sabbatical, do additional theological studies, and promote the missions. More a doer than a promoter, Fr. Pick set off again in 1978 for the parish of Santiago in Yoro. He’s been a missionary and a pastor there ever since.

For Fr. Phil Pick, SJ, getting around Honduras to serve the Lord’s people there has not always been easy – or quick.

A bit of Jesuit black humor notes that missionary work is the one area of Jesuit life that offers the opportunity to become a martyr, especially when winds of change shift in politically unstable places. Fr. Pick was with Archbishop Oscar Romero days before his assassination, the 25th anniversary of which was commemorated March 24. Archbishop Romero used radio the way organizations today use the web – reaching across the country with Sunday sermons that went out over the air and, says Fr. Pick, “just infuriated his enemies” – so much so that they blew up the archbishop’s radio station.

“I was in Panama and I got a telephone call asking me to come up to Salvador and see if I could rescue the radio station,” says Fr. Pick, one of whose specialties was setting up and maintaining radio stations. “Funny thing, they were wondering about getting a new transmitter from the states and I said, ‘You have one in your warehouse.’ ” It turned out Fr. Pick knew about the transmitter because he had recently been working with Fr. Philip Bourret, SJ – “A genius at gathering electronic materials. We had recently tested it together in San Francisco, and I knew it had been shipped to them. It was only 100 yards away from where we were talking.”

Fr. Pick had the station broadcasting again in a week. The Monday after Archbishop Romero went back on the air, an assassin killed him. “A single shot fired from the front door of the chapel hit him right in the heart. He died immediately right in the capital of Salvador.”

What Fr. Pick remembers most about Archbishop Romero is his simplicity and sincerity. “One day in Salvador I was walking down the street and he came by in a simple little car driven by a seminary student, stopped me, and asked where I was going. I said a hospital. ‘We’ll go with you,’ he said. He came inside with me and gave a little greeting to everyone. That really impressed me a lot. He loved the poor, was very sincere, so honest, and unpretentious in every way.”

Fr. Phil Pick, SJ

Fr. Pick’s closest brush with martyrdom came about nine years later, on Nov. 16, 1989 when six Jesuit priests, including the rector and vice rector of El Salvador’s most prestigious university, were killed early in the morning at their residence along with their housekeeper and her daughter.

“I was working for the other radio station there and was sleeping in the same building where they were killed, but had gone back to Honduras for a retreat the week before,” says Fr. Pick, who, almost 16 years later, remains lean, spry, and drawn to mission life despite the risks and demands.

“I’m only 89. I just enjoy my work and take one day at a time,” he says. “What’s the appeal? For one, we have a very good community here. That means a lot. …Then there’s the simplicity of life and the friendliness of the people, the mountain breeze – I just like the simple life.”

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