VATICAN - A life for the mission: Fr. Miguel Angel San Roman Perez, O.P.

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - Fr. Miguel Angel San Roman Perez, O.P. died in Rome on May 7 after a long illness. He was a missionary in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where he exercised for forty years an intense pastoral and educational activity, while occupying positions of responsibility in the Dominican Order to which he belonged. Returning to Rome from 2010 to 2019, he continued to deal with the many and complex aspects of Church life in China, giving his qualified contribution to the Chinese section of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Miguel Angel San Roman Perez was born in Avila (Spain) on March 13, 1944. In the convent of Ocana (Toledo) he took the Dominican habit on August 4, 1959 and made his year of novitiate, at the end of which he made his first profession on August 5, 1960. He studied philosophy at the San Pedro Martir Institute of the Dominicans in Madrid, where he obtained his licentiate in 1964. He made his solemn profession on May 14, 1965 in the Convent of Santo Tomas in Avila, where he studied theology. He was ordained a priest in Avila on July 7, 1968. In June 1969, he completed his theological studies and obtained his licentiate. In December of the same year he was sent to Hong Kong, where he studied the English language and Asian culture to prepare for the ministry he would carry out in Taiwan, where he arrived in 1970 and remained there for most of his missionary life, with some intervals. In Taiwan, he was able to study Mandarin Chinese and Chinese philosophy until 1975, when he began an intense pastoral ministry which was also marked by positions of responsibility in his congregation. He worked in various parishes and was director of the school for catechists, superior of some Dominican communities, responsible for studies and permanent formation, councilor of the vicariate, provincial vicar ... To fulfill his government duties, for some periods between 1985 and 1993 he resided in Hong Kong. In 1994 he was assigned to the Dominican community of via dei Condotti, in Rome. This gave him the opportunity to study missiology at the Gregorian University, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in February 1995 and his doctorate in 2000, with a thesis on "Lay Christians in the Dominican mission in the north of Fujian province, China, in the seventeenth century". In 1995 he was appointed to the Order's apostolate team in China. He then returned to Taiwan, where he remained until 2010. At the end of his service in Taiwan, he returned to Rome and put the legacy of his long missionary experience, his studies and his commitment to the proclamation of the Gospel in the Church in China at the disposal of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Father Miguel was gifted with a marked intelligence, which he used above all in the study of history, and in particular of the history of the Church in China, in the province of Fujian. A tireless worker and lover of research, he left several works, only some of which have been published. A few days before being admitted to hospital, he told his confreres that he was about to complete a historical study on the mission in Taiwan, but he also expressed doubts about his ability to complete it. His confreres remember him as an intelligent, sensitive person, faithful to community life even in the last moments of his illness.
Above all, his missionary zeal was exemplary, his passion for the Church in China and for evangelization, like a true son of St. Dominic. The solemn funeral was celebrated on 11 May in the church of the Dominican convent in via dei Condotti in Rome. Many Dominicans and colleagues from the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples were present. (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 27/5/2021)

Share:

congregation for the evangelization of peoples

---

---