Bishop Wants Plane

A former Davenport resident, for the last 19 years a bishop in the Amazon River valley in Brazil, made a three-day visit to Davenport this week to visit the Redemptorist Priests at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church and friends in the area.

The Most Rev. Robert Anglim returned to the United States for the first time in two years to obtain an airplane which will enable himself and his United Nations (U.N.) medical team to visit Amazon villagers more than “once a year.”

“The U.N. has been putting pressure on the Brazillians to develop the Amazon valley area,” Bishop Anglim said in an interview Thursday.

“In my 96,000 square-mile area there are no roads, and if it rains, and it does 199 days a year, my medical team and I might not be able to get to a village even once a year,” he explained.

But now with the help of Wings of Hope, and organization in Dallas, Tex., Bishop Anglim plans to fly out of the St. Louis, Mo., airport Jan. 10 on his way back to Brazil in an amphibious airplane.

“With the airplane our work in the valley will be 10 times more effective. We can leave a doctor at a village for a month, and we can visit villages about three or four times a year,” the bishop said.