Agenzia Fides

Mangalore (Agenzia Fides) - The Year of Faith will also be a year of mission, because "mission and proclamation are the thermometer of faith": in this spirit the diocese of Mangalore in the Indian state of Karnataka, sent two new priests on a mission in Africa, called to share the gift of faith in a country with serious problems such as Tanzania. And this mission, as reported to Fides in a note of the diocese of Mangalore, will be constantly monitored through a website: in this way, the two missionaries will remain in contact and will share their experience in real time with their diocese of origin.
On November 14, Fr. Alwyn D'Souza, former National Director of the Youth Pastoral, and Fr. Ronald Pinto, who was curate in the parish of Madanthyar, received the solemn missionary mandate for the new missionary venture, they left and arrived the following day in the Diocese of Same, in Tanzania. The Diocese of Mangalore had chosen as the territory of "mission ad gentes" Africa on the occasion of the centenary of its establishment. His Exc. Mgr. Aloysius Paul D'Souza, Bishop of Mangalore, explains: "Given that there is a shortage of priests in that area, the Bishop of Same had asked us for help. Our priests leave as authentic apostles of Christ, to places and persons unknown, and even without knowing the local language. It is Christ that inspires and will guide them in this new path, that of faith and proclamation." The Bishop told Fides that, simultaneously, the website www.mangaloreafricamission.org was launched and will provide information on the development of the African mission of the Diocese of Mangalore. The web, the note concludes, becomes an instrument for fostering communion between believers of different continents.
In the Diocese of Same a mission of the Ursuline Franciscan Sisters of Mangalore is already open, since 2004, which now has thirty nuns, seven convents, three houses and a formation center in three dioceses in Tanzania. Even the Carmelite fathers of Karnataka have been working with rural missions and in the field of education in Tanzania and South Africa for 30 years and currently have 27 priests in Tanzania. The Diocese of Same, in the northeast has more than 30,000 Catholics out of 3 million inhabitants. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 19/11/2012)