Florida Catholic | The Refugee: Father Lazarus Govin

MULTIMEDIA SPECIAL: Six New Priests: In their own words

ANA RODRIGUEZ–SOTO | FC

The Refugee

Father Lazarus Govin’s journey to the priesthood included a perilous sea-crossing at 25 and ultimate freedom at 39.

ANA RODRIGUEZ–SOTO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC MIAMI BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 05.16.08

MIAMI | Father Lazarus Govin, 39, felt at home in the church, a church he remembers entering through the side door because when he was growing up in Cuba the churches could neither open their main doors nor ring their bells.

“My parents took me to the church during those difficult years of the communist regime,” he said. “It was the space of freedom. It’s where I learned all the good values and morals and love and integrity (that were) not taught in that society. … Once you were there, there was a place of peace and beauty.”

Outside there was the ridicule of teachers who would single him out in class and ask, “Why do you go to church? Why do you believe in God? This is nonsense.”

At 25, Father Govin and his father managed to get exit visas to the Dominican Republic. Their mother had received permission earlier to visit relatives in Miami. They would be separated for a year and eight months.

Then her son called and asked, “’Mami, what would you do if we arrived clandestinely?’ I got scared, so I told him to do whatever he was going to do but not to tell me.”

“He had asked God for a sign,” Lourdes Govin recalled. “‘If my mom says no, I won’t do it.’ But I said something else.”

Father Govin and his father spent more than a day at sea with nearly 80 other people, crossing the Mona Channel from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. A few days later, the family was reunited.

Father Govin looks back now at his adolescence, recalling the “life-giving experience” that the church was for him and the work of the priests and Daughters of Charity who nurtured his faith.

“All the work, their example, the space that they created for us to learn to think and to receive the message of the Gospel, that’s what made me think about what I’m going to do with my life,” Father Govin said. “I think the Lord was asking me to give to others what I had received.”

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