Daniel Comboni
Comboni Missionaries
Institutional area
Other links
Newsletter
Visit of the vicar general of the Institute to the Comboni province of Portugal
Rome, Monday, January 14, 2013
From January 8 to 25, the Vicar General of the Comboni Missionaries, Fr. Alberto Pelucchi, is visiting the province of Portugal. He will visit the seven missionary communities and will meet with the bishops of the dioceses where the Comboni Missionaries are present. The visit “intends to build ties between the General Council and the province, to strengthen our presence in that territory and to encourage the confreres to remain faithful to the Comboni missionary vocation,” said Fr. Pelucchi during his visit to the community of Lisbon.
During his stay in Portugal, Fr. Alberto Pelucchi, vicar general of the Comboni Missionaries, will visit the seven Comboni communities present in the country. According to the provincial superior of Portugal, Fr. Alberto de Oliveira Silva, the visit of a member of the GC, which resides in Rome, is “an occasion for strengthening the communion with the Institute and for helping us to rethink our mission and our activities in Portugal, from the point of view of the European context and of the current situation of the Institute.”
The program of the visits to the communities – the Provincial explains – includes a brief dialog with the superior of each community, a personal meeting with each confrere who is thus given the opportunity to speak of himself, of his service to the province and of his relations with the community, a community meeting based on the community charter, communications over the present state of the Institute and a community Mass.
The general program of the visit also includes a meeting with the bishop of the dioceses where each community is located and his participation in the meeting of superiors, vice-superiors and provincial secretaries with the provincial council on January 24.
Fr. Pelucchi will also address the topic of the pastoral commitments in Camarate and Calvão, recently taken up by the Comboni Missionaries, where we have two missionary communities. It is hoped that Fr. Pelucchi will give his approval to these two new commitments, in line with the Institute’s perspective and the directions given by the General Chapter of 2009.
The vicar general will also delve into the vocational situation of the Portuguese province and, in a certain way, of Europe, visiting the European novitiate of Santarém and the postulancy of Maia, two houses that currently have 12 young men aspiring to join the Comboni life.
The visit of Fr. Pelucchi will conclude with a meeting with Fr. Alberto Silva and the four members of the provincial council, on January 25-27.
In Lisbon, from the left: Fr. Claudino Ferreira Gomes; Fr. Alberto de Oliveira Silva, provincial superior;
Fr. Alberto Pelucchi; Br. Alfredo do Rosário Almeida Durão; e Fr. Manuel Ferreira Horta.