Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Ende (Agenzia Fides) – A Spirituality Centre to support vocations and also offer social service has been opened by the Passionist Fathers on the Indonesian Island of Flores where there is a large Catholic community. Father Umberto Palmerini, Secretary General of the Passionists says the Centre is near the village of Maumere, in the archdiocese of Ende.
The Centre includes a Formation House for the Congregation’s seminarians and it will have structures for accommodation and retreats. The Passionist Father say that the island of Flores, a Catholic stronghold in mainly Muslim Indonesia, is fertile soil for vocations and hence the decision to invest resources in evangelisation and proposing the Christian life to young people. The Centre, which will accommodate all the seminarians in east Indonesia, will be the largest Passionist centre in the east of the archipelago with responsibility for Sulawesi, Moluccas and Papua.
However spiritual formation will not be the only activity of the centre. The centre stands on four hectares of land and the Fathers intend to grow vanilla plants and vegetables and to teach modern farming techniques to the local people.
On a hill within the compound they plan to build a small Marian Shrine which they hope will become a place of spirituality and pilgrimages. The Passionist Fathers first came to Indonesia in 1946 and today the community in Indonesia consists of 50 priests and 17 lay brothers and 51 seminarians, thirty are local men. The Passionist Congregation was founded in 1720 in Italy by Paolo Danei (1694-1775) known as St Paul of the Cross. (PA) (Fides Service 10/11/2003 lines 30 words 290)
