“You are a part of us, you are a part of the Dehonian family,” said Fr. Claudio Weber to SCJ bishops gathered in Rome.
Fr. Weber, a member of the General Council, spoke to bishops during introductory remarks at their January 10-15 meeting at the Generalate in Rome.
The Priests of the Sacred Heart have among them 25 bishops, archbishops and cardinals. They serve in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, representing large, urban areas as well as small, missionary locations. In one diocese, the bishop is slowed in his travels by seemingly never-ending city traffic while in another, the lack of roads requires the bishop to walk up over 40 miles in a day to visit with his people.
The bishops represent a wealth of diversity, yet have a significant bond in their heritage and identity as members of the Priests of the Sacred Heart.
“SCJ bishops are like a gateway of the congregation to the broader Church,” said Fr. John van den Hengel, vicar general. “They take our charism into their ministry. They display how our spirituality becomes visible in their care for the local Church. It is important to offer the bishops opportunities for dialogue and renewal with the congregation.”
The group includes Bishop Elio Greselin, bishop of Lichinga, Mozambique. His vocational beginnings were in northern Italy where he says that he pursued religious life “out of hunger; REAL hunger.” In the wake of World War II, Mons. Greselin’s family was desperately poor, often starving.
“When my parish pastor asked if I might consider entering the seminary I said, ‘Do they eat at the seminary?’”
Once he learned that seminarians ate three times a day, he quickly said yes to the pastor’s invitation and entered the SCJs’ minor seminary.
Although he now jokes about the validity of a vocation “driven by hunger,” Bishop Greselin’s love for Fr. Dehon’s charism quickly took hold and guides him in his service as a bishop. “I felt that his calling was mine, the love, sacrifice and gift of the Father as the center of my life in Christ. Today I thank the Lord for this gift.”
Many of the bishops echoed Bishop Greselin’s call to the charism of Fr. Dehon, saying that it is a vital part of who they are in ministry.
“Fr. Dehon said, ‘Go to the people!’” said Bishop Joseph Potocnak, retired bishop of De Aar, South Africa. “That was always important to me as a priest and as a bishop; I wanted to be with the people, I felt called, as Fr. Dehon said, to go to them.”
He continued, saying that “the idea of ‘availability’ is an SCJ ideal, being fully available to others. It’s an ideal that I did my best to live as a bishop, not just to the faithful, but to my fellow priests.”
Bishop Potocnak, originally from the U.S. Province, now lives in Mississippi where he does part-time ministry.
Speaking about his experience as both a Dehonian and as a bishop, Tomé Makhwéliha, archbishop of Nampula (Mozambique) said that “it was through the congregation that God gave me the gift of faith and it is through the SCJs that I awakened to my vocation… I am based in the love of the Heart of Jesus.
“The SCJs gave me a missionary zeal; I learned this from the missionaries who ministered to me.”
“It is only within the Dehonian Family that I find my place in the church,” he added, noting that who and what he is as a bishop is because of the SCJs who educated and formed him.
Bishop Vilsom Basso, bishop of Caxias do Maranhão, Brazil, said that “being an SCJ has a big impact on my ministry because being an SCJ means having a heart of compassion, love and service.” The Brazilian SCJ was a missionary in the Philippines when he was named bishop. He now serves a mission diocese on the edge of the Amazon. Bishop Basso, as are several SCJ bishops, is an alumnus of Sacred Heart School of Theology’s ESL program.
The bishops gathering included a day in Naples with members of the SCJ student community from Rome and a concelebrated Mass at the SCJs’ Cristo Re parish in Rome.
Click here to view photo albums from the conference.
Click here to read articles from the gathering and profiles of some of the bishops
