'God's pauper' building prison in Honduras

Padre Alberto Gauci turns up wearing jeans, an orange T-shirt and flip-flops, chewing gum in between smoking a Superkings menthol cigarette.

His weathered face wrinkles into a smile as he recounts his doctor's advice on his 40-cigarette-a-day habit: "I was warned that if I quit, all the 'monsters' that have lain dormant inside me for years will pop up and I'll come down with some malady."

Living in Honduras, where he runs a parish of 50,000 single-handedly, cigarettes is the only vice (a habit that comes cheap in Central America) the 60-year-old Franciscan has.

Padre Alberto was "infatuated" with St Francis of Assisi, God's pauper, from an early age and at 23, on March 14, 1971 he celebrated his first Mass.

He was keen to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty and his first job was setting up the Peace Lab with Fr Dionysius Mintoff, who runs it to this day.

He later spent a year working in the Maltese parish in Canada before being assigned to the Santa Gertrudis parish, part of the Diocese of Olancho in Honduras, when Fr Diegu Vella died in a car accident.

"I obediently accepted," he said, speaking in impeccable Maltese, with a slight Spanish dialect, bred from 34 years of speaking the language.

Today, Padre Alberto shudders at the thought of ever leaving Honduras, adding that practising the Franciscan philosophy in his parish was much easier than it would ever be in Malta.

This philosophy is to "attend, simply and directly, to the spiritual and other basic human needs, especially those of the poor and disenfranchised, promoting justice for all".

Sitting at Cordina Café, Valletta, sipping a coffee, Padre Alberto is a young-hearted man, with an untiring energy, an infectious smile and deep compassion.

In Malta for a two-week break - he's already getting jittery to return - to meet his family, Padre Alberto insists that he's not here to collect money.

"I have always hated the concept that the missions just come to Malta to collect money. I just want to create awareness so that Europe and the US realises that people are dying of hunger on their doorstep," he said.

But where would he get the money for his next project?

"The money always comes from somewhere," he said shrugging his shoulders. And providence had better be forthcoming, because Padre Alberto and his team of volunteers are in the process of building a prison in Olancho that will cost about $900,000, and is being partly funded by the State.

"I just couldn't accept the situation in the present state prison. It was built 90 years ago for 80 people - today there are 427 prisoners cramped inside, literally sleeping on top of one another. Some are there for just stealing a chicken," he said.

After obtaining a large stretch of land, Padre Alberto set about creating a new prison that can take up to 800 people and serve as a rehabilitation centre where prisoners can learn to be useful when they are released back into society.

Once it is completed - opening is scheduled for October - it will be handed to the State's Ministry of Security, which will be responsible for running it.

This is just one in a string of projects that Padre Alberto throws himself into, in a parish where many live in abject poverty.

The director of Radio Cattolica de Olancho, Padre Alberto set about to unite the parishes within the diocese through the media and help bring some respite to the suffering.

Some of the successful projects include an orphanage, a home for the elderly, who are usually abandoned to their own fate by relatives, and a home of those who have Aids.

"The only hospital in Olancho usually prescribes Tylenol for every ailment. Luckily, we sometimes get medicine sent over from St Louis and Boston," he said.

Another successful venture has been the setting up of a bakery, which makes all the bread for the parish's institutions, and then sells enough to be able to pay the salaries of those who run it.

Life in the Olancho Diocese is not merely a celebration of successful ventures. Padre Alberto witnesses extreme suffering every day.

For a man who weighs 60kg, surviving on a diet of beans and rice, Padre Alberto relies on his inner strength and his Franciscan spirit to survive.

"I bury eight to 10 babies a week who die of malaria. The infant mortality rate is very high, in a country where wealth comes from having a lot of children," he said.

In such situations these people's faith is what keeps them going.

"Religion for them is everything. Mass can take up to two hours and everybody comes along; it's a big celebration," he said.

He makes sure that he is able to reach the villages in his parish and on Sundays he rises early and sometimes travels for four hours- in a canoe, jeep or on foot - between each Mass.

"Being there you fall in love with the people and their basic values in life."