The General Visitation from the SVD leadership in Rome has found the SVD AUS Province to be young and vibrant, with hope for the future, and focused on its role serving multi-ethnic parishes, indigenous communities, intercultural living, formation, and inter-faith dialogue, according to the SVD Vice Superior General, Fr Bob Kisala.

Fr Bob has spent a month visiting all the places in Australia, Thailand and New Zealand where the Divine Word Missionaries are in ministry.

“We do this every six years,” Fr Bob says.

“The General Chapter elects the international leadership team, which is located in Rome, and then we visit every place that SVDs work in the world.

“It’s an opportunity to meet each one of the confreres and hear their story and their hopes, and learn about their ministry and the situation of the places we work in around the world. It is also, importantly, an opportunity to meet the people with whom we work and hear about their story and their needs.”

Fr Bob says the information gathered on such Visitations helps the Generalate when it discusses things in Rome.

“And it also helps to unify the congregation,” he says. “It helps us to stay together and work together with common goals.”

Fr Bob’s first stop on his Visitation to the Province was the Thailand District, followed by Queensland, Central Australia, Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand.

An American, who spent many years as a missionary to Japan, Fr Bob says he has been impressed by the diversity of work being undertaken in the various different parts of the SVD AUS Province, as well as the commitment of the confreres.

“For example, the mission in Central Australia has, I think, been a really good development for the Province. It has helped to focus our ministry here on indigenous concerns and it is obvious there is a real need there too,” he says.

“I was struck by the energy and commitment of the confreres there. All of them clearly really wanted to be there.”

Fr Bob says the work being done in Formation in the AUS Province enriches the whole SVD and the people to whom the young missionaries are sent to serve.

“The SVD community there in Melbourne is a real international community, with students coming from several different countries, so one of the advantages of the formation program here is that these young men, when they are sent out as missionaries, will already have an experience of living in an intercultural community.

“Another advantage is that this formation is done in English, which is a language that can be used in many places around the world.”

Fr Bob says he was left with three key impressions from his visit to the AUS Province.
“The first is that this is a young Province, with a rather large number of young confreres, so there is a lot of life here and hope for the future,” he says.

“The second thing is that it seems the Province is well focused in terms of its understanding of its role and the work we want to do here, in multicultural parishes, in indigenous areas, with people of other religions, and interculturally.

“And lastly, I would say that the leadership here is quite good and that sets a good tone and direction.”