MISSION Magazine Winter 2023

A MAGAZINE OF
THE PONTIFICAL MISSION
SOCIETIES
WINTER 2023
Each of us is
willed. Each of
us is loved.
Each of us is
necessary.

“Faith does not spare us life’s burdens and
tribulations, but it does allow us to face them
in union with God in Christ, with the great
hope that does not disappoint…”
~ Pope Francis
4
BENEDICT,
MAY YOUR JOY BE COMPLETE
8
From The Missions
SOUTH SUDAN: MISSIONARIES
AS BUILDERS OF PEACE
MALAWI: GOGOS IN MALAWI
BURUNDI: BRINING JOY TO THE
CHILDREN IN THE WORLD’S
POOREST COUNTRY
16
EDITOR’S NOTE
On the cover
“In undertaking his ministry,
the new Pope knows that his
task is to bring the light of
Christ to shine before the men
and women of today: not his
own light but that of Christ”,
Pope Benedict XVI, April
2005.
Benedict XVI died emeritus
but was buried as pontiff, and
as such we honor him with this
especial edition of MISSION,
focused on his love for Christ,
evangelization, and also Africa,
which he described as the place
God chose as his refuge.
follow us at @TPMS_USA
The Society for
THE PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH
A Pontifical Mission Society
PUBLISHER: REV. MSGR. KIERAN E. HARRINGTON,
NATIONAL DIRECTOR
EDITOR/WRITER: INÉS SAN MARTÍN
PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL OFFICE OF
THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH
IN COOPERATION WITH DIOCESAN OFFICES IN THE UNITED STATES
©THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH
MEMBER, CATHOLIC MEDIA ASSOCIATION
Receiving duplicate copies?
Please send ALL labels, indicating correct one, to
Circulation Dept., MISSION Magazine
70 West 36 th Street, 8 th Floor, New York, NY. 10018
(212) 563-8700
We welcome your ongoing
feedback and your “letters to
the editor,” ever grateful for
your prayers and help. If you
prefer to send an “email to
the editor,” you can send it to
contact@missio.org
Visit us at our home on the web:
www.OneFamilyInMission.org

2 3
Photographs (left to right): Monsignor Kieran Harrington
with a group of students in Saint Joseph School in Lincoln,
Nebraska. Father Jimmy Jeanfreau in an undated picture,
during a mission trip
Dear sisters and brothers in Mission,
I write to you today from Rome, where I was privileged to concelebrate the
funeral Mass of Pope Benedict XVI and pray at his tomb. I also remembered all
of you who are involved in The Pontifical Mission Societies, your prayers and
your intentions when I went to the tombs of the Apostles.
Benedict XVI was a man who deeply inspired me: he was a wonderful teacher,
and with his words and his witness modeled us all in the way of greater holiness.
Even in his retirement, as Pope Francis said, he helped sustain the Church with
his prayer.
Since becoming National Director of The Pontifical Mission Societies eighteen
months ago, I have been inspired to witness first-hand how the prayers and
offerings from the Church in the United States sustain so many Christian
communities in the missions. Moreover, it has been a singular grace getting to
know so many of you, our faithful supporters. I read every letter and appreciate
every donation that we receive, whether great or small. Thank you!
As we begin this New Year allow me to introduce you to three of the many
people who inspire me.
Just before Christmas I visited Sister Marie Jacqueline and the children of
Saint Joseph School in Lincoln, Nebraska. Talk about a school that promotes
the Missions. These boys and girls don’t just put a few dollars in a “mite box”
to be sent to mission territories. They themselves are learning about the many
needs of the Church in the missions, praying intensely for those serving in
the missions and Christians living in the missions, and sacrificially giving to
support the missions.
Several months ago, I opened the mail and found a significant check from
one of our donors. He had been giving for 30+ years and his contributions were
modest. I called and asked him if he minded me paying him a visit to see what
had inspired such generosity. And so at the end of November, I visited Dodge
City, Kansas, to sit down with Mr. Donald Pendergrast. Don had retired some
years ago, having run an extensive program for Autistic children and those
with developmental disabilities. He had discovered a pressing need for such
an initiative in his community, and set out to help: that’s just the kind of guy
Don is, and why he was giving to the Propagation of the Faith and the Society
of Saint Peter.
In early December, Father Jimmy Jeanfreau, diocesan director for the
Archdiocese of New Orleans, went to the House of Our Father. He was a
carpenter, like our Lord, and was killed late last year in a freak accident in
his woodworking shop. Father Jimmy was the pastor of a vibrant, suburban
parish, but he had served as a missionary in Latin America, and he never failed
to go back each summer. Through email and text, he would constantly remind
me that The Pontifical Mission Societies USA had to be faithful to the charism
of our foundress, Blessed Pauline Jaricot, who believed every single one of us
has a role to play in helping spread the Gospel. By word and example, he was
a sincere apostle of Christ.
These three Christians are representative of all of you. In our next issue, I
will report back on my trip to India, where I am going in the hopes of having
a better grasp of the needs of the local Church, and the upcoming preparatory
meeting in Ponce, Puerto Rico, for what I know will be a historic American
Missionary Congress, to be held in Puerto Rico in 2024.
Your brother in Mission,
MONSIGNOR KIERAN HARRINGTON

4 5
Benedict,
may your joy be complete
When German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was
elected to steer the Barque of Peter in 2005 and
took the name of BENEDICT XVI, it was seen
as a clear sign that he would have Europe in his
heart and as his priority.
After all, he explained he had chosen his name after both Pope Benedict
XV (1914-1922), “that courageous prophet of peace who guided the Church
through turbulent times of war,” and Saint Benedict of Nursia, co-patron of
Europe, whose memory evokes the Christian roots of the Old Continent.
There is, however, a different thread that unites Pope Benedict XVI with both
the faith he professed and the name he took, one which is much more centered
in the mission ad gentes than in Europe: On April 16, 1783, the illiterate and
holy vagabond Benoît-Joseph Labre died in Rome, loved by the people of the
city he adopted after wandering throughout Europe as a pilgrim and rarely
sleeping in a bed.
On that same day 144 years later, the youngest
of the Ratzinger siblings was born in Marktl am
Inn. Following the ancient custom, his parents
gave him the name of the saint whose feast day
was celebrated on that day: Joseph.
Fast-forward 78 years, and the man baptized as
Joseph would become Benoît – or, as the English
world knows him, Benedict. Arguably the most
brilliant theologian ever to sit in the Chair of St.
Peter, he consciously put himself under the
protection of a saint for whom God was not to
be found in books but in the personal experience
found during a pilgrimage.
Pope Benedict XVI, who left us with 66 books,
three encyclicals and four apostolic exhortations,
pushing us to engage with him in the dialogue
Photo credit: Vatican Media between faith and reason, also understood that
in a clearly post-Christian society, if it wanted to
answer the call to be the salt of the earth, the
Church had to orient its efforts towards its still beating heart: the margins.
His successor, Pope Francis, would take this a step forward by adopting the
name of the most beloved poor and itinerant Catholic preacher, St. Francis of
Assisi, and would direct our eyes even further towards the outskirts and those
forgotten by society.
Christ at the heart of it all
Pope Benedict XVI had a clear message for those working on the Church’s
mission of evangelization: place Jesus Christ at the heart of any effort to share
the Gospel.
During his pontificate, he wrote seven messages for World Mission Day,
each richer than the other in terms of what is the meaning behind the Gospel’s
command to go and make disciples of all nations, and his expectations for those
involved in the Church’s missionary call were high from the get go: “Unless
the mission is oriented by charity, that is, unless it springs from a profound act
of divine love, it risks being reduced to mere philanthropic and social activity.
In fact, God’s love for every person constitutes the heart of the experience and

6 7
proclamation of the Gospel, and those who
welcome it in turn become its witnesses,”
he wrote in 2006.
And his entire magisterium was infused
with a call to follow this call to take the Gospel
to every country, city, town, and village,
particularly there where Christ’s redeeming
love has been forgotten, denied or shunned.
For instance, in 2007, during homily in
Aparecida, Brazil, opening the fifth general
conference of the bishops of Latin America
and the Caribbean, he said that the Church’s
strength is rooted in believing in the “God
who is love.”
Hope, he went on to say, is not rooted in
a political ideology, a social movement nor
Photo credit: Vatican Media
an economic system, but in the peace that
Christ has won for us by his Cross, in the God who is love and took flesh, died
and rose in Jesus Christ.
Benedict invited the bishops- and the Church as a whole- to turn our gaze
to Jesus, for the Church’s mission exists only as a prolongation of Christ’s
mission: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
“The Church considers herself the disciple and missionary of this Love:
missionary only insofar as she is a disciple, capable of being attracted constantly
and with renewed wonder by the God who has loved us and who loves us
first,” he said. “The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows
by ‘attraction’: Just as Christ ‘draws all to himself’ by the power of his love,
culminating in the sacrifice of the Cross, so the Church fulfils her mission to the
extent that, in union with Christ, she accomplishes every one of her works in
spiritual and practical imitation of the love of her Lord.”
A special love for Africa
Yet the fact that true hope is not rooted in earthly forces such as ideology, was in
no way a call for the Church to be detached from every-day problems. In 2009,
after returning from a visit to Africa, a continent he loved and defined as the
place God chose as a refuge, Benedict XVI called on Catholics to be instruments
of peace.
“In the midst of the unfortunately numerous and tragic conflicts which still
afflict various regions of that continent, the Church knows she must be a sign
and an instrument of unity and reconciliation so that the whole of Africa may
build together a future of justice, solidarity and peace, putting into practice the
teachings of the Gospel.”
Following the second Synod of Bishops for Africa, he wrote the Apostolic
Exhortation Africae Munus, or “The Commitment of Africa,” in which he
doesn’t dwell at length on the various socio-political, ethnic, economic or
ecological situations they face daily and cannot be ignored because “Africans
know better than anyone else how difficult, disturbing and even tragic these
situations can very often be.”
Instead, he chose to “pay tribute to Africans and to all the Christians of that
continent who face these situations with courage and dignity. Rightly, they
want this dignity to be recognized and respected. I can assure them that the
Church loves and respects Africa,” Benedict wrote.
In this humble edition of MISSION Magazine, we are doing the same, bringing
you stories from South Sudan, Malawi and Burundi.
Benedict, may your joy be complete
The German pope, a brilliant man for all accounts who loved the piano-an
instrument he played proficiently-, Christmas cookies and cats, always urged
Catholics to build a personal relationship with Jesus, and to have this as the
basis of any missionary effort: one cannot go out and proclaim Christ, proclaim
the Gospel, without first having encountered He who loved us so much as to
give us His only Son.
Closing his homily for the funeral Mass for the man whom he described
as a brother, Pope Francis said: “God’s faithful people, gathered here, now
accompanies and entrusts to Him the life of the one who was their pastor...
We want to do this with the same wisdom, tenderness and devotion that he
bestowed upon us over the years. Together, we want to say: ‘Father, into your
hands we commend his spirit’.”
We join him in his final goodbye: “Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom,
may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever!”

8 9
Missionaries
as builders of
peace
Photographs (left to right): A girl prays for peace in South Sudan. Fr. Onesimo in his village.
Six years after the end of a decades-long bloody war
that ended in 2005, South Sudan got its independence
from Sudan, becoming the youngest nation
in the world. Yet the bloodshed started all over
again in 2013, with a civil war. Brutal fighting broke
out, characterized by extreme sexual violence,
the use of child soldiers, and attacks on civilians along ethnic fault lines.
Violence marked the entire life and vocation of Father Onesimo Keneyi
Joseph Venansio who, as God only could have it, was born in 1977, on April
16th - the same day as Pope Benedict XVI. When the second Sudanese civil war
broke in 1984, the village where he lived with his family was besieged, and no
one was allowed in or out for months. There was only one exception: Father
Michael Barton, a missionary from the United States.
“This Catholic priest was the only person who was allowed to come to us
and give us courage, support us both materially and spiritually, giving us food
for the body and for the soul,” he told MISSIO. “As a young boy, I saw what he
did with us and for us, and I knew that I wanted to become a priest so, if war
ever broke again, I too could bring my people support and encourage them to
stay firm in their faith.”
No one was able to leave the village, until the entire community was
transported into Juba, where they lived as refugees. In 1994, at the age of 17,
Father Onesimo joined the minor seminary. They were a small group back
then, he said, but today, there are over 80 young boys in South Sudan’s central
minor seminary - each of the seven dioceses has one - and 46 young men in the
only seminary in the country.
It did not take long for God to put Father Onesimo to the task in terms of
bringing comfort to those affected by senseless violence: soon after his
ordination in 2007, he was tapped by his bishop to assist in the funeral of 14
teenagers who had been killed in a small town seven miles from the St. Joseph
Parish in Juba where he served.
“I feel like, without a priest, people in situations such as that one could easily
lose hope, lose sight of the fact that life, when infused by the enormous gift of
faith, is a tremendous gift that we are called to protect,” he said from Rome,
Italy, where he was sent by his archbishop to study civil and canon law. “There
is a dire need for highly educated people in my country. That is why I am here,
though my heart, and my thoughts, are always in my home, with my people.”

10 11
Sending a priest to Rome is an incredible sacrifice to a diocese in South
Sudan: they receive no salary for their jobs, and most bishops can barely afford
the estimated $300 that helps cover a priest’s meals for a month in a religious
community.
“If you need gas to visit the many parishes that are far from the centers of the
city, or when the time comes to buy a Bible, medicines, or even a light bulb, we
rely exclusively on the faithful, who are poorer than we are, or from Catholics
all over the world, who support us through The Pontifical Mission Societies
or Caritas.”
An estimated 82 percent of the country’s population lives with $1.90 a day.
About 400,000 people have died since the civil war broke in South Sudan in
2013, and more than a third of the country’s 12 million people were uprooted,
sparking Africa’s worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Located in northeast Africa, this nation of 11 million people shares borders
with some of the continent’s poorest countries, most of which have seen
civil conflicts in recent years: African Republic, Central African Republic,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda.
It is estimated that 2.2 million people, nearly 20 percent of the population, are
internally displaced following the conflict - with the United Nations warning
that up to 10 million will need food aid in 2023.
A peace deal was signed in 2019, with a lot of help from three local Christian
leaders as well as Pope Francis and Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby, head
of the Church of England; yet, the endemic violence continues, despite South
Sudan often being labeled as a “forgotten country waging a forgotten war.”
But Francis and Welby are asking us to pay special attention to this bleeding
nation. To make their point, they will be visiting South Sudan from February
3–5, after a papal visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo. In doing so, they
will be fulfilling a promise made in 2019 and conducting a trip postponed first
due to the COVID 19 pandemic and then again last year due to the Pope’s
mobility issues .
Photographs (left to right):Father Onesimo with seminarians. Primary school students during a
recent visit to Juba
By donating to The Pontifical
Mission Societies, you help
priests like Father Onesimo
answer the call of being
witnesses to the faith - sharing
the Gospel, building peace,
fostering life - in all the
ends of the earth.

12 13
Malawi:
Where the
poorest of the
poor help their
neighbors
Photograph: Children in Malawi
In Malawi, “gogo” is the word for grandmother.
Gogos are the poorest of the poor. Many have lost
their children to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and
have orphaned grandchildren to love and care
for. But for childless Gogos, like Gogo Nachisale,
a 70-year-old living alone in Lilongwe in only a sugar cane shack with no windows
or doors, even the unconditional love of a grandchild is a deprivation.
This Gogo caught the attention of Father Vincent Mwakhawawa, who heads
the Pontifical Mission Societies in Malawi. In one of the world’s poorest countries,
where homelessness can be a chronic problem, he and his team decided to act and
recruited the “smallest” ones among the small to help out: the children taking
part in the local chapter of the Missionary Childhood Association (MCA).
In a matter of weeks, they had raised the funds to build Nachisale a home in
the rural community of St. Joseph Ludzi Parish in the Archdiocese of Lilongwe.
“Love is something abstract. But during these past nine years, TPMS, and the
MCA in particular, have helped me experience love, through the certainty that
there is someone out there, in the United States, Spain, Australia, Argentina or
in our neighboring diocese who cares.”
“The children were the ones who pushed their parents to get involved,”
Father Vincent said. “These kids, at 6, 7, 8 and 9 understood that in Nachisale,
their neighbor, was Christ. We need more children like these children. None of
them have things to spare. But what little they do have, they wanted to share.”
“The children were
the ones who
pushed their parents
to get involved.”
~ Father Vincent
The story of compassion and care for this childless grandmother is but one
of many made possible by The Pontifical Mission Societies (TPMS). They
understand that a gogo’s greatest need is twofold –spiritual and physical. They
must minister to the whole person: body, mind, and spirit… And, so, Fr. Vincent
sprang into action with proactive communication that began from the pulpit
and, - with a little help from text messaging technology, spread like wildfire.
Father Vincent has been leading The Pontifical Mission Societies (TPMS) in
Malawi for the past 9 years and is both expecting and hoping to be allowed
back into parish life next year, when a new national director is chosen.
He reflects, “The Pontifical Mission Societies have allowed me to see the
universality of the Catholic Church in action,” he said. “You might not
know their names, but you can have the certainty that at any given moment,
somewhere in the world, there is someone praying for you, thinking of you,
supporting you financially.”
This idea of a fraternity among Catholics throughout the world is something
the national TPMS office in Malawi works hard to instill in those who take part
in the many initiatives they organize, particularly in the children who benefit
from the Missionary Childhood Association.
The Missionary Childhood Association, a society of TPMS, recognizes that
the future of the world and the very existence of faith are in the hands of
today’s children. In empowering the children of Lilongwe to help Gogo
Nachisale, he has inspired the next generation of popes, bishops, clergy,
religious, and lay missionaries.

14
$270
15
gross national income
Children participate in an event organized by MCA in Burundi
Burundi: Impacting the
future leaders of the
world’s poorest country
Burundi is a small landlocked country in the African Great Lakes region in
central Eastern Africa, and based on gross national income - $270 - it is the world’s
poorest country. Many factors contribute to a nation’s wealth, including its
natural resources, educational system, political stability, and national debt.
Though she wouldn’t put it in so many words, Laumy Luncha Alda Igiraneza,
18, is uniquely skilled to make her country a better place for all, by inspiring one
person at a time.
For years Laumy participated in the activities of the national Missionary
Childhood Association (MCA), known locally as Holy Childhood, and then
moved on to lead her parish’s youth group. But the seed of leadership was
planted by one of the 336 animators who accompany some 256,000 children in
the 228 parishes Burundi has.
During her years at MCA, she said, “I became conscious of my human dignity,
became self-confident, aware of God’s love for me and all His people.”
“I learned how to live well with others: my parents, neighbors, siblings,” she
said. And in a country marred by widespread poverty, corruption, instability,
authoritarianism, and illiteracy, Laumy also learned that it is not enough to work
hard to improve oneself.
“MCA taught me not to join people in their bad behavior, and that it is not
right to leave them behind either,” she said. “Instead, we are called to lead them
in change, see how we can help them see the errors of their ways, and lead a life
in accordance with God’s plan for us, coming
together in unity, as a community, and praying
for those people of bad behavior so that they
convert, because God cannot say no to the prayer
of children!”
Father Salvator Ngendabanyikwa has been coordinating The Pontifical
Mission Societies and Missionary Childhood Association for the past nine years,
and the phone line- the connection was too bad for a video call- couldn’t hide
the pride he felt upon hearing Laumy, in the knowledge that if the quarter of
a million children currently taking part in MCA activities finishes their cycles
with a similar mentality, much is set to change for Burundi, a nation that borders
Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania.
According to Father Salvator, Holy Childhood has a visible impact on the lives
of children, helping them grow in their faith and giving them the courage to
stand their ground while remaining polite, kind, and respectful of others.
Not content with the visible changes in the kids, he wants to help them grow
in their faith and also in responsibility by printing the Bible for Children in
the local language- Kirundi- and selling them at the subsidized cost of U$D 2.
Similarly, he wants to print a book for animators of MCA, which has already
been written, but at U$D 5 each, the cost of printing the 1,000 books needed is
right now prohibitive.

16 17
Editor’s
note
In a world where we mostly consume our news online,
the phrase “stop the press” is rarely used anymore. Yet
we most definitely used it this month: as the printers were
warming up for this issue of MISSION Magazine, the
last one carefully crafted by my predecessor, our historic
editor-in-chief Monica Yehle, the quiet, humble giant who
was Pope Benedict XVI left this earth.
Immediately following his death, we saw headlines speaking of a “controversial
man.” And he was, perhaps, controversial, in the sense that he was placed at the
helm of the Catholic Church by the Holy Spirit at a time when our culture tried to
reduce our faith to a feeling, and he weathered the storm making us think. Being
the wonderful teacher that he was, with 66 books, three encyclical letters, four
apostolic exhortations and thousands of homilies, public audiences and speeches,
he challenged us, modeling us in the way of greater holiness by proving that faith
and reason go hand in hand.
We couldn’t do less than honor the disrupting man he was than by racing against
time to re-write and re-design the magazine, while still getting it out on the early
side of winter.
Having said that, as the new editor of MISSION Magazine, I also wanted to take
a paragraph to introduce myself as a recovering journalist who, having spent the
past nine years as a Vatican reporter traveling the world with Pope Francis, I am
now helping with the communications of The Pontifical Mission Societies USA.
One of the biggest honors for me in my previous professional life was telling
the stories of the extraordinary every-day Catholics. We are working hard to
make sure we can bring those stories to you. At the end of the day, this magazine
is not about us, but about those who make up this family: the missionary priests,
religious men and women and lay people, the millions who, thanks to their witness
hear the Gospel for the first time, and you, who with your prayers and often
generous gifts, keep the structure standing.
We have a great team set up, and there are changes ahead in the layout of the
magazine and also the periodicity of its publication. We ask for your patience- and
prayers!- as we continue working on bringing you closer to the stories of those in
the Pope’s missions.
Until we meet again,
Ines San Martin
In support of those spreading the Gospel…
The money needed to support those serving in the Pope’s missions comes
from loving Catholics like you.
Won’t you send whatever contribution you can in the enclosed envelope
today so that the priests, religious and lay pastoral leaders in the
missions may not only survive, but thrive, in their ministry?
Dear Monsignor Kieran,
Enclosed is my gift of:
Thank you for supporting our missionaries.
Please be assured of my prayers for you and your family.
$250 $100 $75 $50 $25 Other $_____
$700 (one year’s help, mission seminarian)
$300 (one year’s help, Religious novice)
$5,000 $2,500 $1,000 $500 Other $____
I want to be a monthly donor to the Missions!
I would like information on a Gift Annuity.
Please contact me about remembering The Society for the Propagation
of the Faith in my Will.
Name
email
Address
Monsignor Kieran
City State Zip
Send your gift, in your MISSION envelope, to:
Monsignor Kieran Harrington
Society for the Propagation of the Faith
70 West 36th Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10018
Your diocese will be credited with your gift; your gift is tax deductible.

Our National Assembly will take
place in San Antonio on the last
week of March.
If you are in the area, you are
welcome to join for Mass at the
San Fernando Cathedral on
March 29.
Follow us on social for the
latest updates: @TPMS_USA
follow us at @TPMS_USA