What's New

The congregational statistics for the third quater ending September 30th have been published. We have created a new page which contains the statistics for the entire year on one page for your convenience. It can be accessed here, and will also be added to the Letters & Documents page (cf. SCJ Statistics - Statistiques - Statistiche 1998).

St. Joseph's Indian School has a new web site at www.stjo.org. For those intertesed in the work of the school among Native Americans in the United States the new site provides a wealth of information. The site change has been made to our links page.

The justice and peace report from the Spanish Province has been added to the Province Justice & Peace Page. It is available in Spanish - French - English and Italian.

The Christmas and New Year's Message from Fr. General has been posted to the Documents and Letters page. It is available in English - French - Italian - Portuguese

What's Happening

The dates for the General Conference, to be held in Recife, Brazil (BS) have been set. The conference will run from May 16-27, 2000. The theme of the conference will be: The Economy and the Reign of God. The first meeting of the preparatory commission will be held here in Rome 21-23 December, 1998. Members of the commission are: Nestor Eckert (BM), Angelo Cavagna (IS), Peter Sanders (CG) and Carlos Alberto da Costa Silva from the general administration.

The general council took time off from work to enjoy a day outing, not far from Rome. The highlight of the day was a visit to the small mountain town of Bangoregio, not far from Lake Bolsena. Other well know cities nearby are: Montefiascone, Orvieto, Viterbo.

The only access to the town is by a long foot bridge -- no cars allowed. December, not exactly the height of the tourist season, found the town just about deserted. The council discovered from one of the locals that about ten people live in the mountain village year round.

St. Bonaventure was born in Bangoregio. Unfortunately all that is left of his place of birth is a small marker in a garden pictured below.

The University of Washington (USA) maintains an art school in the village, but it operates only in the summer months.  

SCJs in Uruguay

There is a team of 10 scjs in Uruguay, representing three different nationalities and it's open to collaboration with other provinces, especially those of Latin America. In fact, they have already begun collaborating with BS [North Brazil]. Lately they have reflected on the meaning of our presence in ROU [region of Uruguay], and they underline:

a) URUGUAY is a very "secularistic" country, with all its consequences. Religion is an individual fact, even though people haven't lost the sense of popular religion.

b) Our presence in Uruguay began 40 years ago, with our Dutch fathers, who who were invited by Dutch immigrants to assist the worker's families in the textile factories. They worked, therefore, in these areas:

• Assisting spiritually young workers and their own associations,
• collaborating in liturgical and biblical reform,
• initiating spiritual ministry with young students at Montevideo University,
• initiating a devotion ministry at "Gruta de Lourdes" sanctuary.

c) Actual prospective of a "prophetic area" in ROU.

The team prefers calling itself a "prophetic area" rather than specific community in that sense, and defines the more characteristic elements as:

1. They have left the suburbs, as a place and also as social class. Our place is located in one of the poorest barrios of Montevideo.
2. The reconciliation service through the ministry with pilgrims to the Marian Sanctuary is another challenge for us. Even the local church is a very important challenge, because sometimes the popular religiosity is not appreciated.*
3. Charity ministry and human promotion. Charity is understood as assistance to the poor in their basic necessities. Human promotion is done through two elementary schools. They are thinking about opening a high school.
4. Vocational Prospective. The general atmosphere is very difficult in this sense, but they are working at it with hope. We have an Uruguayan young priest. They have already formed a community, not yet completed, with two younger priests in order to work more specifically on youth and vocational ministry.
5. The local church is satisfied with the meaningful dehonian presence there, just when many congregations are leaving the country. Therefore, it is a challenge for us.

Attilio Zorzetti (AU)

[English translation provided by Javier Luengo (HI)]