BRAINTREE -- Lima, Peru, is a sprawling city of over 11 million people, located along a scenic coastline and beneath imposing mountains. Much of the city is desert, where migrants from the country's rural areas set up makeshift shelters for themselves and their families. These impromptu neighborhoods do not have electricity, roads, running water, or services like fire departments. The handmade shelters are often built in earthquake zones, or along precarious mountain slopes. Their inhabitants brave such conditions in hopes of providing a better life for their children. Over 90 percent of Peru's population is Catholic, but the country suffers a shortage of priests, especially in the mountains, desert, and rainforest. When Archbishop Richard G. Henning made his first visit to Peru from Jan. 10 to 16, he was impressed by the scenery, but even more impressed by the people he met in those makeshift communities. The archbishop, who is fluent in Spanish, has experience ministering to Peruvian American communities but had never been to South America before.

"I'm already familiar with their character and their devotions," he said. "It was very moving, given that the parishes I was visiting are in very, very poor areas of the city where people have very little, and yet certainly full of faith and joy and compassion for each other."

The archbishop visited Peru to attend a conference of the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle, of which he is president. The St. James Society was established by Cardinal Richard Cushing in 1958 and has been headed by Boston's archbishop ever since. Its members are priests from throughout the English-speaking world who dedicate themselves to evangelization and philanthropic efforts in South America, serving under the local dioceses.

The society has outposts in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, where a lack of roads and telephone lines make communication between regions difficult. The majority of Peruvians live on the equivalent of $5 a day and there is vast inequality between the wealthy inhabitants of Lima and the subsistence farmers who eke out a living in the Andes Mountains.

Archbishop Henning visited two of the St. James Society's four parishes in Lima. One was located in Villa El Salvador, on Lima's south side. A single priest is responsible for a church and two chapels. There are very few police in the area, requiring security guards to patrol the church on a near-constant basis.

"The priest that was there was very impressive," Archbishop Henning said. "He was from the Diocese of Liverpool in England, has learned Spanish, and clearly very close relationship with his people."

Another parish was in the east of Lima, in a community of 250,000 people living on the side of a mountain. This community is home to 14 chapels, all overseen by a single priest. The journey from one chapel to the next can take two hours. St. James Society priests are responsible for establishing Catholic communities in these remote areas. One rural parish has 20 chapels. The diocese it's in has a Catholic population on par with Boston, but not even 100 priests.

"It's true mission territory," Archbishop Henning said. "It takes a lot of resiliency and stamina from the priests to be able to do all of the travel among these very, many different communities. So it was really impressive to meet these priests and see the depth of their commitment."

The St. James Society is beloved in Peru for its work. In many communities, the parish is the only healthcare provider.

"These priests, these missionaries have been really skilled at going in and building almost from nothing," the archbishop said.

When a parish is self-sufficient, the local bishop will assign a diocesan priest there, and the St. James Society missionaries will go to the next place they are needed.

"There's a kind of beauty to that kind of ministry," the archbishop said. "It's very unselfish on the part of the priest. You struggle through the difficult years and then when things finally settle down, you move on and struggle again."

Archbishop Henning also visited an orphanage in Villa El Salvador, operated by an order of Italian sisters. The orphanage cared for children under age three, and had 17 babies when the archbishop visited. Most of the babies were abandoned and had no one else to care for them. Many of the babies are adopted. When those who are not adopted turn three, they go to another orphanage in the countryside.

"The children that I met, they're very young, but they seem to me happy, relaxed, open, unafraid, which tells me they are receiving really true love and care," Archbishop Henning said. "So that was very moving to see. And I certainly am grateful to the sisters for really that gift of their lives for the sake of these children that literally have no one else."

Being in Peru reminded him of the "tremendous richness in the fabric of the tapestry of the Church, a Church that has a shared faith across cultures, languages, and vast distances."

"So I always find that deeply moving, to come in as an outsider, never having visited, and then yes, that being welcomed and connecting really as a brother of faith, and being able to preach that faith, and speak that language of prayer, it's a beautiful thing," he said.