ASIA/INDONESIA - Blossoming of vocations in the midst of a pandemic, the joy of being missionaries

Monday, 18 January 2021 evangelization   mission   missionary animation   vocations  

INTERNET

Maumere (Agenzia Fides) - "In a global context made worse by the Coronavirus pandemic, on the island of Flores, there is no lack of positive news: In the coming months, in fact, new priestly ordinations are planned, which will be added to those, recently, of 20 Verbite missionaries, 3 priests of the Institute of Vocationist Fathers and one of the Congregation of the Holy Stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ", writes to Agenzia Fides Father Luigi Galvani, a Camillian missionary present on island for more than 10 years. The island of Flores has many priestly and religious vocations. "There are many male and female Institutes that have created their seminaries and religious houses. We have the largest philosophical and theological seminary of the Catholic Church in the world, of the Verbite Missionaries, with more than one thousand and two hundred students that Pope John Paul II visited in 1989", recalls Fr. Galvani. The Camillian explains that in Flores the Coronavirus has limited its presence so far but that, nevertheless, the difficulties are not lacking: "The island of Flores - he indicates - is considered among the poorest in Indonesia, but has the characteristic of having the most high percentage of Catholics (70%) of the 17 thousand islands of the great Indonesian archipelago. The population here needs everything, food, health care as well as basic necessities. Each month we distribute food parcels to some 200 particularly needy families. We also continue to build with passion small special houses for the mentally ill coming out of years of marginalization, in addition to hygienic situations and miserable poverty. We have already built about fifty of them, bringing new joy and hope to many poor sick people" (see Fides, 15/3/2019). (LG/AP) (Agenzia Fides, 18/1/2021)


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