On Sunday, July 28, Fr. Daniel Panchot, C.S.C., was presented the Condecoración Cruz Apóstol Santiago (Cross of St. James Award) by the Most Rev. Fernando Chomali G., Archbishop of Santiago in Chile, at the noon Mass at the Cathedral. The award is given each year by the Archdiocese to lay people, married couples, religious, and priests for their “valuable support of the pastoral ministry, evangelization, promotion of human dignity, and Catholic education” in the Archdiocese.

After joining the Congregation and making his Novitiate in the United States, Fr. Panchot arrived in Chile in September 1961, where he completed his theological studies at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and began his priestly ministry in a growing working-class area in the eastern part of Santiago.

Shortly after the coup on September 11, 1973, when several of his parishioners had been detained, Fr. Panchot joined the fledging ecumenical “Comité de Cooperación para la Pazen Chile” (Cooperative Committee for Peace in Chile) that bravely accompanied, advocated for, and defended those targeted by the regime and their family members.

Learn more about the ministries of Holy Cross in Chile

The Committee soon discovered the regime’s inhuman practice of detaining people and disappearing them. Thus began Fr. Panchot’s lifelong solidarity and accompaniment of the families of the “detenidos-desaparecidos”. The committee created the cover and space for the families with members who had disappeared to form a self-help group of the families themselves. It is thanks in large part to this group and its advocacy that the United Nations recognized the forced disappearance of people as a crime against humanity.

After two years of intense work, Fr. Panchot himself was eventually detained several times before being forcibly exiled in 1975. From there, he continued to advocate for the defense of human rights in Chile, testifying before committees of the United Nations and U.S. Congress.

Watch the Archdiocese's report of the ceremony

Prohibited from Chile until the return of democracy, he spent the next 36 years working in Peru and then Mexico, before returning to Chile in 2011, where he has served since in Peñalolén, a suburb of Santiago, including 10 years as Pastor of San Roque Parish.

As a fruit of his accompanying the families of the detenidos-desaparecidos as well as fellow political prisoners, Fr. Panchot began working extensively with the families who have members with physical and mental disabilities—another passion and ministry that he developed while in Peru. There he helped to found Yancana Huasy (literally “House of Work” in the language of the Incas), which attends to the needs of children who live with physical and mental challenges, including Down Syndrome, and their families. He has continued that ministry in Mexico and Chile.

Fr. Panchot is the second Holy Cross religious to receive the Condecoración Cruz Apóstol Santiago. The first was Br. Donald Kuchenmeister, C.S.C., who received it in 2016. He also was the first religious brother to ever receive the award, which recognized his work with vulnerable children and the elderly. Both Br. Kuchenmeister and Fr. Panchot are members of the Congregation’s District of Chile-Perú.