Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Card. Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, on 4 March 2011, appointed as National Director for the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States for the period 2011-2016, Fr Andrew Small, from the Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate(OMI).
The new National Director was born on 20 April 1968 in Liverpool (England). He completed his secondary schooling at St Francis Xavier College in Liverpool, then studied law at Sheffield University. In January 1990 he began his novitiate with the Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate(OMI) in Dublin (Ireland), where he made his first vows in 1991 and then perpetual vows in 1997. He studied philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and then at Milltown Institute (Dublin). He was ordained a priest in Liverpool in 1999. He was a missionary in Brazil (Recife), then assistant parish priest in Houston (Texas, United States). He continued legal studies at Georgetown University in Washington, and in theology at the Catholic University of America. He has acted in many local, national and international roles, among them as a Law Professor. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 7/04/2011)
