The Provincial Delegation of St. Anthony of Padua in Ecuador recently gave thanks to God when one of its confreres made his simple profession on July 10, 2022. The Delegation belongs to the Province of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe in Poland (Gdańsk).
Friar Jefferson Patricio LÓPEZ CANACUAN undertook his novitiate year in Totolapan, Mexico. The novitiate is under the jurisdiction of the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. After completing his novitiate, Friar Jefferson professed his simple vows into the hands of the Provincial Delegate of Ecuador, Friar Michał PAGA. The profession ceremony took place during Mass animated by the local parish community at the Church of Jesús el Buen Pastor de la Kennedy in Quito, Ecuador. Congratulations to our newly professed friar!
The main staff at the mission in Ecuador is comprised of ten missionary friars from the Province of Gdańsk. Another friar will be joining them in August of this year. The friars live at five friaries across Ecuador, where they are joined by native vocations to create international communities. Presently, the Delegation has only two priests who are natives of Ecuador along with another priest who is a native of Colombia. The Delegation has seven native friars from Ecuador, in all phases of initial formation. This is not a large number, but we believe that the Lord God will bless the Delegation, our ministry and this country and thus, slowly but surely, build up successive generations of Conventual Franciscan brothers and priests in Ecuador.
Friar Robert KOZIELSKI, Provincial Secretary for the Missions
