CONGRATULATIONS PIME MISSIONARIES... ANOTHER SIGN OF SPRINGTIME IN THE CHURCH.... HE WAS ONE OF OUR RESOURCE PERSONS AT EUNTES... Fr. Brambillasca elected as PIMEs new Superior General He is 49 years old, comes from Brianza in northern Italy and will be leading the Institute for the next six years. Until todays election he had been the regional superior in Japan The Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) has a new superior general. His name id Ferruccio Brambillasca and he begins his new role after working as regional superior of PIME in Tokyo. Brambillasca was elected this morning after receiving a two-thirds majority vote from participants at the XIV General Assembly of PIME being held in Rome since the start of the month. He will be leading the missionary institute for the next six years, taking over from Fr. Gianbattista Zanchi, who completed two mandates as superior general. Fr. Brambillasca is from Brianza in northern Italy and will celebrate his 49th birthday in just a few days. He is currently superior of the PIME community in Japan, where he has been carrying out his ministry since 1998. He was born in Agrate Brianza the same town in northern Italy where PIME missionary Clemente Vismara comes from. Vismara, who was proclaimed “Patriarch of Burma” by the local bishops’ conference, was beatified in Milan in 2011 (“I became a missionary after reading his letters. As a youngster I was really struck by them,” he said). PIME’s new superior has a degree in dogmatic theology from Naples, after discussing the “silence of God” with Italian theologian Bruno Forte. Before his mission in Japan, he taught in the Seminary of Pune in India. In Japan he had the experience of working in the tiny parish of Choschi on the outskirts of Tokyo. The community was made up of just a few dozen Christians in an area of Buddhists. Here, he had simple encounters with many non Christians. He then moved on to Seijo, one of Tokyo’s biggest parishes. Alongside Fr. Brambillasca, PIME’s General Assembly also elected the team that will assist him. Guinea Bissau missionary, Fr. Davide Sciocco (49), has been elected Vicar General. Angelo Ramazzotti (who was Patriarch of Venice at the time) founded the Institute in Milan, in 1850. It was set up as a Lombard Seminary for foreign missions. In 1926, Pius XI decided the Institute should be merged with the Pontifical Seminary of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul for the Foreign Missions. It founded in Rome by Mgr. Pietro Avanzini, turning into PIME. There are currently about 450 PIME missionaries working in Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, China and Hong Kong, the Ivory Coast, the Philippines, Japan, Guinea Bissau, India, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 07:47:41 +0000
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