Around the Provinces: Confrere News and Updates

Fr. Prudencio Rodriguez, CM		Fr. Paul Golden, CM		Fr. Oscar Lukefahr, CM

Midwest Province

Nairobi, Kenya – DePaul Centre

Frequent emails from Nairobi assured us that all our confreres and students are safe, in spite
of the violence that continues to flare up throughout the country. The initial troubles began while our students were home for the Christmas holidays, so our immediate concern was for their safety while traveling back to the seminary, often through dangerous rural areas. With God’s help, all 39 novices and students made it back safely, but most had stories of horrible suffering and some were concerned about family members in places where the clashes were most fierce.

The Vincentians at our parishes in Kamulu and Thigio are reaching out to those who are displaced because of the violence. Especially in Thigio, the confreres have been working hard to encourage the locals not to form vigilante groups that only contribute to the tribal fighting. Confreres at Christ the King Seminary in Nyeri also report that they are safe.

In Nairobi, the confreres are cautious about leaving DePaul Centre and restrict their doing so to daylight hours. Early on they were without some basic food staples like milk and bread, and the stores were not stocked, but that problem has improved.

Most sad is the plight of the children in the slums, most of whom are orphans. So much of the city rioting and killing has been in the Kibera slum where the Society of St. Vincent de Paul runs a nursery for the children, a nursery we have helped organize and run. The Daughters of Charity managed to get 15 older kids out, walking them as if they were just going somewhere in the slums, no clothes with them, to a truck waiting on the edge of the slum. They jumped in and
took off to the Daughters’ residence next to DePaul Centre where they are housing them until things calm down. The Daughters have been reaching out to other orphans too. God bless them and their efforts.

Denver – DePaul House

Father Prudencio Rodriguez, CM, has been invited to teach a course at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver on Pastoral Theology during the spring quarter. St. John Vianney is the major seminary for the Archdiocese of Denver. It is housed in the former St. Thomas Seminary, which was run by the Vincentians from 1906 to 1995.

Father Paul Golden, CM, received the President’sCADistinguished Service Award from the National Organization for Continuing Education of Roman Catholic Clergy (NOCERCC) at their most recent annual convention in Clearwater, Florida. Established in 1994, the award is presented to an individual whose service of the Gospel and the Church exemplifies NOCERCC’s mission and goals. The award is intended to bring the priesthood, and the value and importance of ongoing formation for priests, to the center of positive attention. The recipient is a person who supports NOCERCC, contributes to its work, and champions NOCERCC’s mission and goals.

Perryville – Association of the Miraculous Medal

A bronze statue of Our Lady of Grace was recently installed on the facade of the new Visitor Center. CAThe piece was sculpted by award-winning liturgical artist, Norbert Ohnmacht. Mr. Ohnmacht is a parishioner of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Burlington, Colorado, where the Vincentians served for nine years.

Perryville – St. Vincent de Paul Parish

Two recent articles in the St. Louis Review, a weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of
St. Louis, highlighted the number of religious vocations that have come from St. Vincent
de Paul High School in Perryville, Missouri. Approximately 17 priests and 15 religious women attended the parish high school as teens. Four recent graduates are discerning religious vocations. Three are members of the class of 2002 — John Peirick, studying for the priesthood for the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Penance in Loretto, Pennsyl­ vania; Jason Schumer, a seminarian for the Archdiocese, studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome; and Sister Mary George Brown of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George in Alton, Illinois. Sister Mary Michael Reiss, who graduated in 2003, is a member of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus in Kirkwood, Missouri.

Perryville – St. Mary’s of the Barrens

Father Oscar Lukefahr, CM, traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana, to attend the Johannes Hofinger Conference, an annual event sponsored by the Archdiocese of New Orleans Office
of Religious Education. Named for Father Johannes Hofinger, SJ, a revered religious educator, the conference is recognized as an event of great quality and excellence that brings world and nationally renowned theologians and Catechetical instructors to the Gulf Coast.

St. Louis – Lazarist Residence

Father John Gagnepain, CM, the director of continuing education for the clergy of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese, invited Father Dan Harris, CM, to offer presentations on preaching at four locales across the diocese. These regular sessions are times for the area priests and deacons to gather for study, prayer, and socializing.

Chicago – DePaul Vincentian Residence

Members of the Vincentian Family celebrated the founding of the Congregation of the Mission on the vigil of January 25. Confreres sang vespers and enjoyed a dinner with about 25 guests from neighboring Vincentian houses, the Daughters of Charity, and affiliates of the Community. That evening Father John Rybolt, CM, also presented a lecture at the university, “In the Footsteps of Vincent de Paul”, on the Vincentian sites in France. The event included a book signing of his recently published Guide to Vincentian France.

Fr. John Gagnepain, CM		Fr. John Rybolt, CM		Fr. Louis Arceneaux, CM

Southern Province

The following is an excerpt from the travel diary of Father Louis Arceneaux, CM, upon his return from a recent trip to Kenya.

Last year, Father Barry Moriarty, CM, invited me to come to Nairobi to spend some time with the Com­ munity there, primarily to lead the novices in an eight-day directed retreat, and also to assist him with a couple of activities with the novices.

Since this was my first visit to Africa, I learned a great deal, at least about Kenya and specifically about Nairobi. I was impressed with the presence of Catholic religious men and women communities in the area. It is called “The Little Vatican” because of the number of religious orders who have headquarters and communities there. There is a large Catholic Theological Union, similar to the Chicago Theological Union, with many religious congregations sponsoring and sending students there. Fr. Moriarty and Father Tom Esselman, CM, teach at the school.

My experience in directing the novices was a very positive one for me, and from what I have heard, a positive experience for them. There are four novices from Kenya and two from the Province of Cameroon who are making their novitiate with the Kenyans. All of them are in their late twenties or early thirties. I found them quite mature and eager to enter the discipline of a silent eight-day directed retreat.

Besides the retreat, Fr. Moriarty asked me to facilitate the midyear evaluation of the novitiate program, with him and the novices. That, too, was a positive experience; the novices all seemed pleased with the way their novitiate experience is progressing and Fr. Moriarty too expressed satisfaction with the experience of this group of novices. For us older Vincentians, the present novitiate is a far cry from what we experienced years ago in Perryville and probably even different from what others experienced in Santa Barbara.

The American, Irish and Kenyan confreres on the faculty and the students seem to get along quite well. I was impressed with the dedication of the faculty to the work of seminary formation. I recalled my years of seminary formation, when I was much younger, and admire the older men still carrying on in Kenya.