Column

Sharing his vision rewards patients

By ERNEST HOOPER
Published July 5, 2007

Attorney Marcelino Huerta would not leave me alone.

A few months ago, Huerta sent a DVD called The Patients of a Saint. The 2005 documentary tells the incredibly selfless story of his friend and Tampa native Tony Lazzara, a doctor who walked away from a promising career in 1983 to become a missionary.

I started watching the movie and learned of the children who fill Lazzara's residential clinic in Chaclacayo, Peru.

The clinic, known as Hogar San Francisco de Asis, serves more than 60 children who are stricken with tuberculosis, leukemia and other illnesses. Lazzara looks at them all - even those with unsightly cleft palates and corneal opacities - and sees only the face of God.

I see only misery. After 45 minutes of the two-hour DVD, I turned it off.

Huerta kept calling, however. He said I had to meet this humble man, who returns to Tampa twice a year to visit his brothers and cousins. He insisted I couldn't let Lazzara leave without talking to him.

So I had lunch with Lazzara at the Colonnade.

Now 64, Lazzara serves as the clinic's doctor, medical director, fundraiser, administrator, chauffeur and deliveryman. He says daily Mass and Holy Communion sustain him through 16- and 18-hour days.

Despite the documentary's title, he insists he is not a saint, but his selflessness inspires in unfathomable ways. He speaks of a geriatric nurse from Belgium who came to Chaclacayo to spend two to three weeks volunteering in the home.

As her tenure neared its end, Lazzara asked, "When are you leaving?" The response surprised even him, a man who walked away from a tenured position at Emory University more than 20 years ago.

"She said, 'I sold my house, I sold my car, I quit my job and I'm going to stay with you, ' " he explained. "That helps me, knowing that there are other people who share our vision."

I realized more people should share the vision, so I resumed watching the documentary, written and directed by Gerry Straub. By design, the film mixes hope and heartache.

I rooted for the kids, like the one named Victor. He has no arms, one leg and one prosthesis but writes, eats and brushes his teeth with his one foot.

But I also sank into despair as Straub's pictures and words told one heartbreaking story after another. My admiration for Lazzara reached new heights, but it also reminded me of how little I do to help.

Again, I turned it off.

But Huerta kept calling. And when he didn't call, his secretary called. Always polite, never rude - even though I had given them reason to be upset.

Eventually, I got to the end of the DVD, and even Straub admitted the difficulties of looking at such sad kids.

"But we must look at them, " he explained. "The real sin hidden within the plague of global poverty ... is our inexplicable indifference, our complicity and complacency.

"The Gospel tells us we must not look away from the suffering, we must not ignore the poor. The Gospel tells us to embrace the suffering and the weak, to be God's healing hands."

You know, I'm glad Huerta kept calling.

That's all I'm saying.

Fast Facts:

Want to help?

To donate or obtain a copy of The Patients Of A Saint, go to www.villa lapazfoundation.org.

[Last modified July 5, 2007, 00:09:54]