Helga Auer RSCJ, an Austrian sister of the Sacred Heart, lives in Vienna. She finished her studies in the late 1960s, worked for four years in a pharmacy, then, as a young volunteer, traveled to Brazil to participate in a mission project. Three years later, she joined the Society of the Sacred Heart. Early in her novitiate, she had a serious car accident that required multiple surgeries and her return to Vienna. From 1988 to 2005, she worked as a pastoral psychologist in Austria and taught in Peru at the Universidad Femenina del Sagrado Corazón (UNIFÉ)* in Lima, where she published a textbook on humanistic psychology and various shorter manuals. Erika Tornya RSCJ talked with her about liberation theology, the Church in Peru, and Latin American experiences in general.
Erika Tornya RSCJ (ET): You came to know Latin America early because you volunteered in Brazil when you were young. What did you do there? What experiences did you have?
Helga Auer RSCJ (HA): During my pharmacy studies, I was already pondering a religious vocation, but I was uncertain and found it hard to believe that Jesus was calling me in a special way. I struggled with God over this, since I couldn’t let go of the question. I thought: if I do something very different than what I’d done up to then, maybe that will help me see more clearly. So I applied for a volunteer project offered by the Sacré Cœur order globally to its students. This included several weeks of preparation in Rome before we were sent to the mission. I wanted to go somewhere I didn’t know the language, and specifically to work with the poor. Above all, I sought distance from God and his persistent invitation. I longed for an environment totally unlike the one I had lived in up to then. But soon I discovered that the Jesus of Austria was the same Jesus in Brazil. So I couldn’t run away from him, and I began to focus simply on the concrete realities I found.
ET: What could a young woman from the West do among Brazil’s poor?
HA: I was part of a nine‐person international group, made up of former students from Germany, Switzerland, Uruguay, Argentina, and Mexico. We lived at our school in Belo Horizonte. We didn’t share a common language, but we were creative, and communication developed quickly. We worked in a nearby favela, where there was a medical clinic (posto médico) where a physician was present once a week. We bandaged wounds, visited people, listened to their worries and problems. For the locals, there were training opportunities: basic tailoring, sewing courses, or typing. An illiterate man signed up, hoping to learn to read and write immediately. I set up a small pharmacy using donated free samples from many clinics around the city. The doctors were very generous. I was even allowed to prepare some medicines myself, for example, a cough syrup. On Sundays, we drove to villages around to take care of the sick. Someone from our group, who was a lab assistant, did microscopic stool tests; I administered medicines against parasites and worms. To do this, I took part in a tropical medicine seminar at the local faculty of pharmacy.
ET: Did you also engage in the religious life of the favelas?
HA: We cared for a chapel built by the poor, and we prayed with them. Once we were part of a procession: at the front was a statue of Our Lady of Fátima, and at the end Our Lady of Lourdes. It was an old custom: to go around the village asking blessings for everyone. During the procession, a local came up to me and asked whether I knew that the two Marys — Lourdes and Fátima — are cousins. He did so seriously, which showed me that their faith is deep, yet their knowledge is limited. At that time, the bishop, who had just returned from Rome after Vatican II, asked us to help with pastoral care, because many base communities in the interior part of the country needed to be established, but there were not enough priests. Among the volunteers, those who studied theology helped to write homilies, but someone was also needed to go to the villages and give Communion. He chose me because he thought I could respond well in unexpected situations. Fantastic work began. My first assignment was to a fairly remote village, where people had not received the Eucharist for a long time. I got a good off-road vehicle, carried the Blessed Sacrament in a closed ciborium on the front passenger seat, but roads were so bad — if there was road at all — that later I thought it safer to keep the ciborium in the glove compartment to protect it. Sometimes I had to cross streams, where I couldn’t see how deep the water was, and it was never certain the car would pass. But I went bravely, because I knew the locals had gathered and were waiting for me. If there was someone literate in the local community, they would read the Gospel, we would sing, talk, and share life stories. There were spontaneous prayers. Then I would give Communion. We celebrated together, and I said farewell with a blessing. I could do almost nothing more, since I spoke very little Portuguese. I experienced being an instrument of the Holy Spirit. That was awe-inspiring to me, and gradually I was able to accept my religious vocation.
ET: Did the local people accept that a foreign woman came instead of a priest?
HA: That wasn’t a problem: the bishop had told them. They were awaiting Jesus, and received us gratefully. What was important for them was the Eucharist and the shared celebration, which the local community well prepared.
ET: This work with the poor is practically part of liberation theology. What’s your view of that theological direction, which has since been partially rejected, knowing the Brazilian and Peruvian poor as you do, as a Western person?
HA: During my life there, thoughts of liberation theology gradually became clear to me. I knew some of its representatives personally, including Gustavo Gutiérrez; I attended several of his lectures. Even before the Second Vatican Council, a new theological approach was developing in the Latin American Church (especially in Brazil): liberation theology in opposition to prevailing structures of power. Awakened Christians and theologians, confronted with unjust power arrangements, started reading the Gospel from the perspective of the oppressed, the poor. The Scriptures express the living promise of God: “I will come and free you.” The message is not “endure, suffer, and you will be rewarded in heaven,” but that God’s promises apply here and now, and call us to action. In short: liberation theology saw itself as the voice of the poor, and it refused to accept injustice as divinely ordained. The movement, which concretely addresses social liberation of the poor and oppressed, quickly found followers — including among Jesuits. It speaks of social justice based on the equal dignity of every person, and of political change that improves people’s living conditions. For radicals, the words of the Magnificat became important: “He has scattered the proud, thrown down the mighty… filled the hungry with good things, sent the rich away empty.” Some took those words quite literally, became radical and violent, because they felt the Scripture gave them that justification. Certainly there was political influence from the left, but I think those who worked radically in the field of liberation theology were basically not communists, rather people deeply moved by human suffering, wanting in some way to help.
ET: But an unjust situation alone does not justify violence.
HA: Yes, you are right — but one has to understand that the context, the Latin American political environment, was itself violent. Think of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, killed during Mass in 1980, or the 1989 university massacre, where six Jesuits and two civilians were killed. Liberation theology stood in the way of many vested interests; for example, it spoke out radically against child labor. Children were made to work in silver mines, many of them disappeared without a trace, likely victims of organ traffickers. These networks had no interest in the strengthening of liberation theology.
ET: After volunteering in Brazil, you entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in Brazil. You wanted to live and work there, but after the car accident, you had to return to Austria for health reasons, and continued your religious life there. How did you get involved with the Society’s university in Peru, UNIFÉ?
HA: After the accident, I could no longer do standing work, so pharmacy was no longer possible. So I studied psychology and theology. I completed several additional trainings and focused on pastoral psychology. I came to Peru completely unexpectedly. In 1987, our superior asked me to work together with a French and a Colombian sister on a four-month spiritual renewal course in Brazil, for our South American sisters who wanted to deepen the teachings of the Council. The training included a thirty-day retreat. I said I didn’t speak Spanish and had a busy schedule. The answer was: I had eight more months to learn the language and prepare for the course. The preparation was a bit overwhelming, but it was successful. In the roughly twenty‐person group was also the vice‐rector of UNIFÉ, with whom I became friends. Then I was invited to teach there. Between 1988 and 2005, I spent thirteen periods of several months in Peru, giving seminars, courses and lectures to students, professors, and fellow sisters in humanistic and pastoral psychology, to help people live in healing relationships, thereby contributing to building up the Kingdom of God.
ET: The UNIFÉ is a Catholic private university. Why do only women study there? Is it only available to the wealthy?
HA: The special focus on women comes from our foundress, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat. In her time, French society collapsed due to the revolution. Madeleine Sophie believed that if you do good work in educating women, those women can influence their husbands and lead whole societies toward faith and Gospel values. In Peru, we also provide social support to girls applying to us, so that nobody is excluded from education because of not being able to pay tuition. Among our professors, there are, of course, men, but the students also practice leadership skills with us. They learn to argue in debates, lead discussions, moderate, dare to express their opinions. They are so attached to the university that it has become customary that on their wedding day, the bridal bouquet is brought into the university church to the Madonna statue. The whole wedding party comes; alumnae in older generations take care of one another, are organized socially, and help older alumnae in need.
ET: Did you work in Peru also outside the framework of the university?
HA: Yes. UNIFÉ has a contract with the Cajamarca University in northern Peru, and our students have gone to villages nearly three thousand meters above sea level to help indigenous populations: teaching reading and writing, helping grow vegetables, making cheese. I participated in those projects two or three times. In conversations with the local bishop, the idea came up of establishing a radio station offering distance learning courses focused on health care and education, especially for elementary school teachers. In Lima, our congregation runs a large school for the poor, whose washroom facilities were in catastrophic condition. The community there got funds from the Society’s International Solidarity Fund, so toilets and washbasins were installed. Everyone was happy, but the next day everything was gone: during the night, the local people had dismantled and sold off the fixtures. That too is part of reality. In another solidarity project in a school, richer children who study elsewhere bring extra snack bags every day, and these are delivered the same day to a poorer school where children do not get breakfast at home. In this way, children experience solidarity and also learn generosity and acceptance from a young age.
ET: What was your impression of Peru?
HA: My first — difficult — experience was perhaps the “Peruvian time.” They have their own rhythm. If I scheduled a lecture for 11 a.m., the people would show up about two hours later: first they chat, drink coffee, then one can start. Being an Austrian, this was hard to accept. Later, we always clarified in advance whether we would start at “Viennese time” or “Peruvian time.” In general, Peru is simultaneously rich and poor. It exports sugar, coffee, cotton and cacao; is the fourth largest fishing country, and rich in natural resources: minerals, especially copper, gold, silver, and coal. Unlike Brazil, where rice and black beans are consumed daily, Peruvian cuisine is fine and very varied. Peru is a beautiful country. There are deserts, high mountains, basins, peaks, and jungles. It has ancient cultures and great artistic treasures, but many cannot enjoy its beauty, benefit from its riches, or rediscover their cultural identity. There is great poverty and huge social inequalities, which have led to political unrest and terrorism. Since 1969, the ”Shining Path” (Sendero Luminoso, a Peruvian Maoist party) has blown up power lines, carried out brutal massacres, putting fear and chaos into the whole country. Only the arrest of its founder, Abimael Guzmán Reynoso in 1992, significantly weakened the organization. A third of the population lives in Lima. On the outskirts of the city, slums are continuously growing. There, everything is missing: electricity, water, sewage systems, even paved roads. The people there are immigrants from the highlands, indigenous, who can hardly cope with the cultural shock. But if you ask Peruvians what hope they carry in their tense and often hopeless‐seeming situation, you always get the same answer: “We believe in life, because life is stronger.” For me, it is clear that Peru has chosen life.
*UNIFÉ Universidad Femenina del Sagrado Corazón
UNIFÉ is a women’s private university in Lima, founded in 1962 by the Society of the Sacred Heart (Sacré Cœur sisters). It aims at providing students with a holistic scientific, humanistic, and ethical education, based on Christian and Catholic values. It supports women’s leadership and social involvement. Its motto is Espacio Académico para Mujeres Líderes (roughly: “Academic space for women leaders”). It offers programs in seven faculties, including architecture, law, pedagogy, business administration, nutrition, psychology, and communication sciences. Since the 1970s, it has offered postgraduate programs, such as master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology, law, and nutrition.
Text: Erika Tornya RSCJ
Cover Photo: View of Puno and Titicaca Lake, Peru. Wikimedia Commons, Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0
The original Hungarian version of the interview appeared in the September 2025 issue of ”A SZÍV” (THE HEART), Hungarian Jesuit magazine.
Translated into English by ChatGPT (OpenAI’s GPT-5 model), September 2025. The translation was revised and corrected by Cecília Molnár RSCJ.
