Reflection: A deeply Human and Divine God
“I would like to share my personal experience of 30 years of mission, highlighting not so much what I preached, but what people, the poor and the street have taught me about who God is”. A reflection of Father Vincenzo Bordo, missionary in South Korea. I don’t believe, and I don’t even care anymore, in […]
Vocation story: “What do you want from me?”
He always felt that God was calling him. For a while, he resisted that voice, up to the point of being ready to call it quits. Eventually, he yielded to God’s will. Now he is making the best of where God places him. A Comboni Father, Zúñiga Paredes Roy Carlos from Peru, tell us his […]
European Bishops: “Despite Brexit, we will continue to work together”
The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union has recently released a statement on the UK leaving the European Union. The Commission released a statement saying: “the United Kingdom is no longer part of the European Union. We are saddened, but as defenders of freedom of expression and democracy, the Catholic Church in […]
Saving the Planet and Ourselves
Australia, Philippines, California and Central and South Africa have been recently hit by severe drought and endless forest fires. Thousands are suffering. Plants and animals perish. This we must and can stop. The experts and advocates saving the planet call it an “ecocide” where the ecology and environment is being destroyed before our eyes. There […]
Bolivia, Jaqichasiña: the Aymara Wedding
The Aymara wedding ceremony is a social ritual in which all the community takes part. After this rite the individual is afforded a different social status, hence the couple becomes an integral part of its community and is committed to offering it its support and collaboration. In the Andean Aymara world, jaqi (personhood) is not […]
Mexico: Masks, Carnival Faces
Carnival is celebrated by dancing in the streets, in many Mexican towns. It is a colourful feast characterized by the typical holiday hustle and bustle, dances, music, and masks of course. The dance groups of the south of Tlaxcala perform the Dance of Chivarrudo. These dancers are representative of the mestizo cowboys who were responsible […]
Indonesia: the Miracle of Flores
In Indonesia seminaries are overcrowded with candidates. On the island of Flores lies the world’s largest seminary. More than 1,000 students study at Ledalero, and at least 600 of them are candidates for the priesthood. At 7:30 in the morning, first year students arrive at the Ledalero campus, a short distance from the port city […]
A missionary is a “man of the Word”
In the first half of the last century the Comboni Missionaries in Africa had produced – in addition to specialized studies disseminated in various articles for magazines and books – 63 grammars, 88 vocabularies, 114 catechisms, 23 books of Sacred History , 54 prayer books, 137 school texts: syllabaries, reading books, arithmetic, history, geography, etc. […]
Tropical African Plants Facing Extinction
A new study warns that a third of tropical African plants are on the path to extinction, with much of western Africa standing to lose more than 40 per cent of plant diversity. Ethiopia, and parts of Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the hardest hit regions, the researchers found. Species at […]
Oral Literature: Handy Hare and The Drought
One year the sun shone hotter than ever, there was no rain, and all the pools and rivers dried up. The animals gathered together, wondering what they should do. Then the Intelligent Elephant, who has the largest brain, addressed them: “I know where we can dig for water. But you must all help me. We […]
