John Dorman English Saint

 

‘It will afford a good idea of the proportion which imaginary danger from animals in Guiana bears to the real evils inflicted by these if we try to realise the possible thoughts of a nervous man when bathing in one of the rivers of that country. The nervous bather remembers that from the moment when he throws off his clothes, every part of his body not covered by water is exposed to the attack of mosquitoes, sandflies, and many other sharply stinging insects; but, on the other hand, that every part of his body covered by water may at any moment be bitten by perai, may receive a violent shock from an electric eel, or may be horribly lacerated by the poisoned spine of a sting-ray, or a limb may be snapped off by a passing cayman or alligator, or his whole body may be crushed, and thus prepared for swallowing by a huge water serpent; or, even if none of these pains come upon him, he may remember that the egg of a certain worm… may be deposited unnoticed on his flesh, there to develop and become exceedingly painful. Now all these dangers are real enough but of all the men who trust themselves in these waters day after day not ten per cent, have ever felt even any of the smaller evils which have been described’.

Conversations are happening about John Dorman (1916-1998) whose ashes are buried in Kamarang, Guyana being submitted for inclusion in the Calendar of the Church in the Province of the West Indies. Though Fr John was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth his distinction is in another league, that of holiness ‘the most powerful influence in the world’ (Pascal). John persuaded me to come and train Amerindian priests. I had recently joined the Company of Mission Priests (CMP) of which he was a founder member, someone we looked up to as a veteran missionary full of tales of the beauty and peril of Guyana’s interior, though as with all saints some found his enthusiasm disconcerting. In social gatherings Canon Dorman was a striking figure with a direct gaze that seemed to go to the heart of each one of us in his company. His evangelical fervour linked to the prayerful anglocatholic faith.  I recall one of John’s letters arriving on my desk at St Wilfrith, Moorends, Doncaster one day in autumn 1985. This asked me to prayerfully consider augmenting the CMP team in Guyana to serve the training of Amerindian priests. I could find no excuse, such was the spiritual force of Canon Dorman on that and so many other occasions, linked to his docile yet courageous flowing with the Holy Spirit. The need for Amerindian priests was evident and it seemed God needed me to help supply them. 

 

In the 21st century the word ‘missionary’ is an uncomfortable word in a world so much more aware of the variety of cultures and religions. We doubt the unique claims of religion. We question whether human well being is advanced by religion. We are particularly uncomfortable with the British colonial legacy and its associated commendation of Christianity. With John Dorman I am proud to be part of the rich legacy of service the Church of England has provided in its Guyana Venture. With all its failings that venture flows primarily from hearts seeking to build and not tear down, to serve and not to be served, counter to the negative overtones of the word ‘missionary’ in today’s world. Fr John Dorman first went to the then British Guiana at the invitation of Archbishop Alan Knight in 1957 and served there almost continuously up to his death in 1998. As I visited John Dorman in July 1998 just before his death at the Middlesex Hospital I was able to remind him of how my encounter with him had transformed my life in two ways. Prompted by the Spirit, Fr John led me both to serve Guyana's Amerindians and to enter the state of marriage, sadly parting ways with CMP. Our son, James, then 8, known and loved by Canon Dorman, was at my side to greet him in those last hours. As I prayed journey blessings on this great priest, it was with a reminder that, as he went to God, he was leaving a life - James’s - that would not have come into being without his intervention.

In his book ‘Old-Style Missionary - The Ministry of John Dorman, Priest in Guyana’ Derek Goodrich tells a riveting tale helped by John’s letters. It begins with a shipwreck on the Essequibo in which Fr John nearly loses his life on his way to take a Boxing Day Mass. He swims in the dark to safety on Calf Island where he says a ‘Magnificat’ in thanksgiving. Writing from his hammock in the vestry at Kurupung he speaks of the ‘paint on the walls still scarred by the blood the vampire bats have sampled from my great toes’. As one once attacked by a vampire bat at Issano with that bloody sequel I can say I have been baptised in the same baptism of blood as my hero! Derek Goodrich describes how John was ‘driven from the Mission one night by a pack of jaguars and on another occasion was arrested by the Venezuelan frontier guards on the pretext of teaching without authority on their soil, a trumped up charge fortunately soon withdrawn’. The missionary priest spends himself in much itinerant ministry: ‘Towards evening he would reach a Mission for Evensong, Confessions, Confirmation class then sleep in a hammock with Mass in the early morning. The work was endlessly varied in pattern and human need “It is concerned with carrying the simple riches of divine love to the simple poor people who need Him,” 

Guyana missionary Canon John Dorman (1916-98) wrote of how the Amerindians ‘at every point…live in two worlds and more and more these two worlds are coming into collision with their own ancient way taking most of the knocks’. When I used to visit him in Kamarang he was always deeply concerned about the heavy drinking and the video shops opened for the mining fraternity and their effect on the indigenous people. The formerly tranquil community had more of the feel of the Wild West with young people being drawn into prostitution. Between 1975 and 1983 John was involved in a successful international campaign against a major hydroelectric project that would have flooded the Akawaio homelands including the sacred centre of the Alleluia Church. His refusal to condemn the Alleluia Church which holds many elements of Christian tradition (but with no bible or eucharist) contrasted with the negative attitude of other Christian Churches. His largest church at Jawalla was built especially to accommodate the traditional Alleluia dance which would accompany or follow the Eucharist on great feast days. In his homily in St James, Islington at Canon Dorman’s funeral Fr Allan Buik said: ‘His devotion to his  Amerindians could be paternalistic…(his) foibles were all facets of his love for the people to whom God had sent him, the people for whom he never stopped caring’. Conversations are happening about John Dorman’s name being submitted for inclusion in the Calendar of the Church in the Province of the West Indies.