LIFE OF THE CONGREGATION
With great joy Fr. Virginio, SCJ Superior General, announced the first SCJ professions which took place in India (on May 1, 1999) and in the Philippines (on May 31,1999).
The newly professed Indians were two: Roque Placido Rebello and Louis Mariano Fernandez; and two also were the newly professed Filipinos: Arthur Palamine Guevara and John Karl Cabaluna.
On the same date as these first professions, the respective territories of India and the Philippines were constituted as "Districts" and their respective superiors were appointed administrators ad interim for a year, during which time all the practical aspects will be studied.
The project for the Philippines had started many years before the first SCJ missionaries left for that country. A first request had been advanced by the Indonesian Province during the General Chapter of 1979. The motion, which the General Chapter of 1985 passed by 60 votes out of 66, requested a study of the possibility of a new SCJ presence in Asia.
On July 2,1987, after an extensive consultation with all the members of the Congregation, the General Council made the decision to initiate a new SCJ mission in the Philippines. The first group reached the Philippines on May 17,1989. It was comprised of three brethren from the Argentina-Uruguay Province, one from the German Province, two from the Polish Province, one from the Indonesian Province and one from the Province of Northern Ireland. When they celebrated the 10th anniversary of their arrival this new District was comprised of fifteen priests, one brother, two newly professed brethren, two postulants, three candidates for the postulate and nine applicants.
In India the beginning of the SCJ presence began on October 5,1994 with the arrival of Frs. Martin van Ooij and Andrew Ryder, who were very cordially welcomed by Bishop Joseph Kureethara. In the month of June 1995 eight students asked to join the little SCJ group and, to insure that they would be able to continue their studies, they were received in the diocesan seminary of Cochin. In 1997 the first SCJ residence in India was opened: the Dehon Bhavan in Kumbalanghy.
Between 1997 and 1998 there were three important developments: first, in June 1997 there were five missionaries, in 1998 this number was doubled reaching ten, thus illustrating to the local Church the seriousness of our commitment. The second important gain was the purchase and the putting into use of the new and large building in Aluva for our 6 philosophy and 4 theology students. The extraordinary response given to the call for vocations should also be noted: in our Dehon Bhavan house there are currently 18 seminarians, while 14 others live and study in the diocesan seminary.
The 1998-1999 school year also proved very vital; marking the beginnings of the SCJ presence also in the dioceses of Guntur, approximately 800km north of Cochin. The school started in June of 1998 with 9 candidates for our Congregation; they live and study in the minor seminary of the dioceses and they are looked after by Fr. Adrianus van der Wilk, SCJ, a Dutchman who was admitted as part of the educational staff of the seminary.
One final important thing to recall about India is the opening of our new novitiate on the island of Bolgatty (April 1998). The building was given to us rent-free for two years. This is where the two newly professed brethren of India did their novitiate: Mariano Fernandez and Placido Rebello, both from Goa.
Gratitude and joy were expressed by all of the brethren who were either more or less directly associated with this happy inauguration of the SCJ presence in Asia. But it is only right that we should also commit ourselves to pray that the brethren of the different Provinces which share this responsibility will be able to live and increase the spirit of the "Sint Unum" which has characterized these initiatives and, by emphasizing a poor presence in the midst of so many poor people, that they may form the new candidates according to the charism of our venerable Founder, attentive and sensitive to the strong expectations of such a vast continent.
The Fusion of the two Provinces
The date May 1,1999 will also be marked in the history of the Congregation for another reason: the administrative fusion of the two Provinces, GA and LW, which will now be governed by a single general administration made up of six people: the Provincial, a Vice Provincial and 2 + 2 councilors.,
This is the first step towards a fuller integration, one which will allow the achievement of a complete fusion in the year 2002.
This is the first time that something like this has happened in the Congregation and it has been motivated by the numerical recession and by the chronic lack of vocations. We are somewhat in the antipodes of what we have seen the situation to be in India and in the Philippines; but all we have accomplished has been done under the sign of theological hope, in the firm conviction that only God can know what the future may have in store for us.
Everyone, in fact, hopes that this fusion, and the activities which follow it, will provide the young people of the respective countries with a profound experience of our charism, for it is in this way that the Dehonian presence will find renewed vigor in the countries in which it was born; and from these countries our charism has already begun to be spread throughout the world.