Tom Shea was ordained a Catholic priest in the Congregation of Holy Cross (C.S.C.) in 1967, and volunteered to assist the Church in Peru where there was a shortage of priests. In the letter and spirit of Vatican II, he endeavored to empower the laity to be a thriving Church in the absence of priests. Associated with a founder of Liberation Theology, which holds that the Church not only has an obligation to charity, but also the duty to work socially and politically to raise the poor out of their poverty, he lived among the poor to whom he was devoted. Essentially a teacher and religious organizer, he often found himself in conflict. "This is the story of my life in Peru as I moved into the new Latin American Church and the new social order emerging in most of Latin America at the time. It is like the stories of many people my age who have had to grow and stretch themselves into a new era, some with more success than others, but all carrying the wounds of change and the conflicts that change brings in its wake. I hope that this account of my life in Peru will help you to consider your own life's journey to be a gift from God, one that you try to carry forward through joys and struggles the best you can." GRACIAS PERÚ, chapter 1.
