NUNTIA No. 6 – June 2008

From the general Curia:The CPAG2010; June “Tempo Forte”; The Superior General; The Assistants General; The Delegate to the Vincentian Family. From the Provinces: Puerto Rico; Zaragoza; Philippines; China; Cuba; Poland; USA-East. Nominationes. Ordinationes. Defuntiones.
From the General Curia:
The CPAG2010. This month, we open Nuntia with the photo of the Preparatory Commission for the 2010 General Assembly. It is composed of Fathers Giuseppe Turati (Province of Turin), Yosief Zeracristos (Province of Saint Justin De Jacobis), Patrick J. Griffin (Eastern Province, USA), Elie Delplace (Province of Paris), Bienvenido Disu (Province of the Philippines) and L. Fernando Macías (Province of Chile).
They had their first meeting in our Curia House in Rome, from 9-13 June, to begin their planning. Five days of intense work allowed them to be almost ready to send the Visitors a full package of documents with orientations and tools to facilitate the work of preparation for and carrying out the Assemblies.
June “Tempo Forte”: From the 9th to the 13th, the calendars of the Assistants indicated a tempo forte session. Their reflections took up those days and some additional sessions. The Superior General’s letter, sent to the Visitors and published on cmglobal.org, gave information on the matters treated.
The Superior General. He returned from the United States, where he gave a retreat in California to the members of the West, Midwest and Southern Provinces. He was present in Salamanca, from 6-8 June, at the SSVP’s Youth Meeting. After presiding the Tempo Forte meetings and meeting with the Preparatory Commission for the Assembly, he went to Slovakia on the 19th, where he encouraged the entire Vincentian Family. He visited all the confreres’ houses of the province and met several times with the Daughters of Charity and different groups of the Vincentian Family. He returned joyful and satisfied to have witnessed the vitality of the Vincentian charism in both nations, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which the province includes.
The Assistants General. Father José Antonio Ubillús made the canonical visitation of the Province of Puerto Rico. Father Gérard Du Tran Cong made a long journey through Asia and Oceania: Thailand, China, Japan, Australia and the Fiji Islands. Father José María Nieto made the canonical visitation of the Province of Zaragoza. They will inform us about these visits below, in the section on the provinces, although Father Gérard’s report, given its extent, will be published in installments.
The Delegate to the Vincentian Family. This is the report on his most recent visits. “From April until the beginning of June 2008, the Superior General’s Delegate to the Vincentian Family took part in the following events that involved different branches of the international Vincentian Family: Meeting of the Vincentian Family in New Orleans (10-13 April); Provincial Assembly of the Daughters of Charity in Thailand and Vincentian Formation Sessions for the Daughters of Charity in Bangkok (19-29 April); visit to the Vincentian Family in Taiwan (5-16 May) and Summer Program of Vincentian Formation for Vincentian educators in the Philippines. In New Orleans, he witnessed the enthusiasm and commitment of the Vincentian Family in North America to giving concrete help to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, who even today continue suffering the consequences of that disaster. In Thailand, he facilitated the Provincial Assembly to prepare for the 2009 General Assembly. He also spoke to the members on the extended Vincentian Family and its new saints and blessed. On his visit to Taiwan, he was able to glimpse the initial attempts of the different branches to work together for the benefit of the poor, especially on the southeast of the island, where the aborigines live. The Summer Program for Vincentian Educators asked three conferences of him in each of the cities where the Universities and Colleges are: Manila (Adamson University, C.M.) Lucena (Sacred Heart College, D.C.) and Naga (University of Saint Isabel, D.C.). In these conferences, he centered on the potential of the International Vincentian Family, the characteristics and principal values of Vincentian education, and the elements of spirituality for a Vincentian educator.
During this time, the Delegate also developed other activities in preparation for the Continental Meetings of the Vincentian Family in Bangkok and for the 350th anniversary of the deaths of Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Louise de Marillac. At the beginning of June, the Oblates de Mary Immaculate asked him for a brief talk, here in Rome, to the Commission of their lay associations, on the nature of collaboration and association between lay and consecrated, for orders or vows, in the wide Vincentian Family.
From the Provinces:
Puerto Rico. Visit of Father Ubillús: “From 27 April to 4 May, Father José Antonio Ubillús, Assistant General, made the official visit to the Province of Puerto Rico, which includes three countries: Puerto Rico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Father Ubillús returned very impressed by the welcome and collaboration that the missionaries offered him at all times. At present, the province is experiencing some shortages, but in spite of this certainty, it has a credit balance that is clearly positive. He confirmed the appreciation the missionaries feel for Saint Vincent and the Congregation of the Mission, the regularity of the common life and apostolic activities, the daily practice of prayer in common, the number of vocations, the great quantity of pastoral and social works at the service of the poorest and marginalized, the interest and even concern for the province itself, as it is, and the same with regard to its present moment and its short- and medium-term future. In short, there are well-founded reasons for looking at the reality of the Province of Puerto Rico with hope, thanks to the work that all the missionaries carry out with so much dedication and generosity.
Zaragoza. Visit of Father Nieto: From 8 April until 4 June, Father José María Nieto, Assistant General, visited the Province of Zaragoza. At present, the province has 19 communities, 17 in Spain (13 on the peninsula and four on the Canary Islands), one in Honduras and one in New York. It is composed of 120 missionaries, with a median age of 65.9 years, an age that is tending to increase. It also has five candidates and four admitted ones, one of whom is in the Internal Seminary and the three others are studying theology. Youth and vocation work, together with initial formation, is one of the principal provincial concerns.
The province’s apostolic activity has changed, although parishes are, by far, the principal ministry. Some of them are situated in areas of intense poverty and marginalization. For more than 25 years, the province has supported a good Popular Mission team, which has achieved, in spite of many pastoral difficulties, a valuable updating of this ministry. Since 1989, the province has been in charge of the missionary parishes of Puerto Cortés and Cuyamel in Honduras. In them it carries out an intense work of evangelization, education and human promotion. The effort to care for and evangelize immigrants is another of the significant ministries: in several points of Spain, our missionaries attend to immigrants coming from Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe; in Holy Agony Parish in Harlem, New York, Hispanics are the great majority of the parishioners.
The prison chaplaincies (San Sebastián and Albacete) now represent a “Vincentian” tradition among the provincial ministries. Likewise, the support that the missionaries offer the Daughters of Charity and the various lay branches of the Vincentian Family, in diverse ways, is very notable. In three places (Baracaldo, Las Palmas and Honduras) and with good quality, the province runs educational works for children and youth. Finally, it is worth emphasizing and thanking Zaragoza for its important collaboration to the whole of the Congregation, both in personnel (SIEV, Vincentiana and Nuntia, CIF, etc.), as well as in financial assistance.
Philippines. Visit of Father Gérard to Thailand: From 7-12 April, he visited the Vincentian community of Samphran, a locality situated approximately 40 kilometers to the west of Bangkok. In 1990, the first two missionaries (a priest and a brother) came to Thailand from the Province of the Philippines, invited by a diocesan bishop. Today the Community consists of five confreres, four Filipinos and a young Thai. The last mentioned is pastor of two small parishes near Khon Kaen, at six hours by car to the north of Bangkok. Father Gérard had the opportunity to meet with the Visitatrix of the Province of Thailand, a Filipina Sister, and some Filipina and Thai Sisters in Khon Kaen where the Provincial House of the Daughters of the Charity is located on an extensive and beautiful property.
The current superior of the community, one of the pioneers of the mission, is also the Provincial Director of the Daughters of Charity of Thailand. Another confrere teaches English and other material at the National Major Seminary “Lux Mundi.” A third is in charge of Formation because, after some years, with the support of those responsible for the province, the confreres have gotten some local vocations. In addition to the young man mentioned previously, another Thai confrere has just pronounced his vows and will be ordained deacon, with four Filipinos, on 26 July in Manila. Two seminarians, after some years of preparatory studies at the national seminary, have been sent to the Philippines to begin the important stage of the Internal Seminary (Novitiate) with the Filipino novices. Recently, a Filipino confrere volunteered to go to work in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with an NGO and in collaboration with the Daughters of Charity. Finally, a project is being studied to enter Laos and Myanmar (Burma). It should be noted that the Daughters of Charity are already in Laos. On the last day of the Assistant General’s visit, he went to pay his respects to the Cardinal Archbishop of Bangkok.
The Vincentian Mission of Thailand, full of promise, can be compared to a seed that develops gently. Let us hope that, with God’s help, it will one day be a tree loaded with fruit.
China. Visit of Father Gérard: From 13-30 April, he made the canonical visitation of the Province of China. We know that this province has a long and glorious history, adorned in the 19th century with the martyrdom of our two confreres, Saint John Gabriel Perboyre and Saint Francis Regis Clet. The first three confreres had come to China before 1783. But especially in the years from 1785 to 1855 the Vincentians came to China in great numbers, called to replace the Jesuits. From 1900 to 1955 there was a period of great missionary activity, with the arrival of numerous foreign confreres: French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Irish, and American, and with the erection of two Chinese Provinces (North and South). This period ended with the Communist control over the entire country, which forced the foreigners to leave it.
The Chinese, American and Irish confreres continued the China mission with the Chinese, who fled the country and came to Taiwan. The life of the Congregation was organized in three sectors: Taipei (mission entrusted to the Province of Holland), Szehu (center of the unified province in 1972), and Kaohsiung-Tainan (mission entrusted to the Midwest Province USA). In these three sectors, the confreres expelled from China and the Dutch and American missionaries worked at the evangelization of the country. They developed parishes, day-care centers for children as a parochial service, a secondary school, social works for the handicapped, and residences for the elderly.
On 15 January 1987, Father McCullen, Superior General of the C.M. at the time, erected the new Province of China, unifying the three existing sectors in Taiwan.
Today the Province of China has 23 confreres in Taiwan and some others in Continental China, mostly elderly. In Taiwan there are three canonical houses: Taipei (the Provincial House), Sze-hu (secondary school) and Tainan, Kaohsiung (southwest) and Taitung (southeast). There are ten Chinese (of whom eight are between 78 and 89 years of age), two Americans, two Dutch, four Indonesians, one Indian, one Vietnamese, one Korean and one Filipino. The median age is 66. The confreres animate about 20 parishes. Recently the Bishop of Taitung entrusted to the Vincentians two parishes with the care of around 15 chapels, situated along some 30 kilometers of the southeast coast. The Christians of this region come, in great majority, from the aborigines. It should also be noted that a confrere serves as chaplain to the English-speakers in Beijing. These are from approximately 50 different nationalities. A Polish confrere is in charge of formation. An Irish confrere, who recently withdrew from the province to his Province of Origin, is employed by a charitable organization in the capital and, finally, a Dutch confrere teaches French.
One sees that this is an aging province, surviving thanks to the foreigners’ presence. These latter are in the majority, and constitute a lively strength, concretely the confrere-missionaries originally from other countries of Asia. Nevertheless a small light of hope appears on the horizon: a young Korean man wants to join the Community and is taking intensive courses in Chinese at the University of Taiwan. Let’s hope that he will one day be a good missionary to continue this mission of China that inflamed the heart of so many apostles! The future is even more on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, in the Great China with more than 1,300,000,000 inhabitants.
(Father Gérard’s reports on his visits to Japan, Australia, and the Fiji Islands will be published in the next issue of Nuntia.)
Cuba. Priestly Ordination of Yosbel Lazo Cordero: With great joy the Visitor, Father Justo Moro, informed the Superior General of the ordination of this new priest of the Congregation in Cuba. The ordaining bishop was Msgr. Jorge Serpa, Bishop of Pinar del Río, the diocese in which the new priest will work. It is in a rather isolated area where communication is difficult and, as the Visitor humorously puts it, not far from the end of the world. Yosbel knows practically the entire community of Pinar del Río, because he was born, grew and acquired multiple experiences working in his parish with the youth. The Province of Cuba has dared to take it under its responsibility “ad experimentum” and has sent it its new priest, Father Yosbel.
Poland. Priestly Jubilees on15 June 2008. In Kraków, eight missionaries celebrated the Golden Jubilee of their priestly ordination. To them were joined three more, with representation from another three, absent for reasons of work or illness, to celebrate their Silver Jubilees. Bishop Paweł Socha, C.M., ordained 50 years, presided the concelebration. Father Bronisław Tomczyk, ordained 55 years, preached the homily.
The same day, in Warsaw, Father Karol Mrowiec, C.M., ordained 65 years ago, gave thanks to God for his life and for his vocation to the priesthood. The High Mass was presided by His Eminence Stanisław Cardinal Nagy, a friend of Father Mrowiec, who also preached the homily.
USA-East. Father Freund writes from St. John’s University: “We dedicate the Bread and Life facility in BedStuy [Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York] this morning [11 June 2008]. Bread and Life is a soup kitchen (second largest in the City) and social services agency. It was originally started by our parish and then taken over by the diocese. We took the control for a couple of years and have been promoters and initiators of a fund for some new facilities. It is opening tomorrow and I could not be more proud of it. Not only are we directly helping thousands of the poor, but we are also exposing our students and faculty to the needs of the poor in an experiential way. In my heart, I believe that this is where Vincentian and university can meet most effectively and, in addition, educate the poor”.
Nominationes

Ordinationes

Necrologium