Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Sao Paolo (Fides Service) - The general chapter of the Consolata Missionaries (IMC) taking place in Sao Paolo, Brazil, has elected as new superior general to lead the institute for the next six years, Brazilian born Fr Aquileo Fiorentini, aged 53, born in Tucunduya, Rio Grande do Sul. He studied philosophy in São Paulo and in Rome he studied theology and missiology at the Gregorian University and spirituality at the Teresianum College and also obtained a licentiate in psychology at the pontifical Salesian University. He was parish priest in Vilankul, Mozambique for four years 1984-1987 and later formator and bursar at Curitiba Seminary in Brazil. From 1999 to 2005 he was a general counsellor.
As Superior General of the IMC Fr Fiorentini will be flanked by Fr Stefano Camerlengo (48, Italian, missionary in D. .Congo); Fr. Francisco Lopez Vazquez (51, Spanish, missionary in Korea); Fr. Antonio Manuel (37, Portuguese, missionary in Brazil); Fr. Matthew Ouma (40, Kenyan). This team of direction is the most international in the history of the institute. This is the first time the Superior is a non Italian and the first time an African is elected in the direction.
Founded in Turin 29 January 1901 by Blessed Giuseppe Allamano (1851-1926), the Consolata Missions Institute, after its Constitutions had bee approved by Propaganda Fide (1923), was aggregated to the Vatican’s Congregation for Missions CEP. The period of IMC’s just over 100 years of missionary activity was identified with the time of transformation in which free peoples and local Churches were born. The Consolata Missionaries helped this transformation using the methodology of their founder who made human promotion and evangelisation to two fundamental and indispensable values of local cultures. Today there are about 1,000 Consolata Missionaries working in 22 countries on 4 continents: Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, England); Africa (Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Congo, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia); America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, United States, Canada, Venezuela); Asia (Korea). (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 13/5/2005)
