Marskramers van God

In the 1950s, ten Catholic boys were sent to the interior of Brazil as missionaries from the seminary of the Carmelite Order in Zenderen. In this documentary, based on Marcel Haenen's book Tien paters op Gods grote akker, four of them are introduced. Piet Jansen is the only one who is still a father, in the Brazilian city of Unaí. In 1961, Frits Hoedemaker was the first member of the group to abandon priesthood, Jan Dousi and Anton Cornelissen followed him in the 1970s. However, they are still fulfilling their vocation: Dousi works as a voluntary psychologist in the prison of Nova Lima, Cornelissen still feels 'a bit of a father and a bit of a farmer.' They talk about their struggles with the celibacy and the strict hierarchy of the church. The voice-over (by Huub Stapel) adds context and reads from the diaries and letters from 1956 in which the boys noted down their first impressions of Brazil.