The Founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary
Immaculate, Saint Eugene de Mazenod, former bishop of Marseille, France, died
150 years ago on May 21. On Saturday, May 21, 2011, Msgr. Santiago de Wits, councilor
of the apostolic nunciature in Kinshasa, presided at a Mass for this
thrice-gold jubilee, in the chapel of the Saint Eugene de Mazenod Scholasticate
in Kinshasa-Kintambo.
Msgr. Santiago de Wits
Msgr. De Wits noted that the charism of Eugene
de Mazenod has borne much fruit; he was referring to the many participants at
the Mass who are students at the institute which bears the name of the Oblate
Founder. Coming from 30 male and female Congregations and from every part of
the country, men and women religious and some lay persons study theology and
missiology in the institute founded 29 years ago.
The St. Eugene de Mazenod Institute, affiliated
with the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome, provides the ordinary cycle
of studies for future priests, but also a licentiate program in missiology and a
doctrine program designed for women religious and non-clerical male religious.
Foreign missionaries coming for the first time to the Democratic Republic of
Congo can get an initiation into the culture, the philosophy, the theology and,
of course, western and Congolese languages. A computer center introduces
whoever is interested to the digital culture. And the program of conferences of
the “Cardinal Malula Chair” since 1994 has been offering to everyone the
opportunity to reflect on problems of the faith in relation to the African and
Congolese culture. (Fr.
Jean-Baptiste MALENGE, OMI, Correspondant de Radio Vatican)
