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You are here:Home / Family News / NEF 2013 / Family News - 2013 July 14th / In memoriam
Jul 13, 2013

In memoriam

Father João Batista RIBEIRO (Virginia, 6 November 1940 - Paulinia,14 June 2013)

In memoriam

Fr. João Batista Ribeiro was born in Virginia, near Passa Quarto (Brazil), one of the parishes served by our Fathers from St Michael’s College. At that time, after a week at the service of the pupils, the teachers’ rest consisted in helping the Parish Priests for confessions and Mass in rural communities.

João Batista entered the apostolicat of Conceicão do Rio Verde (St Joseph’s) in 1953.  Under the guardianship of Fr Enrique Lasuen about a hundred of us instilled life into the school, which previously had been for the primary school children (7 – 11 year olds).  After the college, together with other companions, still under the guardianship of Fr Enrique Lasuen, he did his novitiate in the seminary of Belo Ramo, Passa Quatro, in 1957.  After First Profession in February 1958, he left for Adrogue (Argentina) to do his philosophy.

He will be part of the first group which came to Belo Horizonte in 1961 for a foundation meant for the Brazilian scholasticate.  We looked after the new Sacred Heart parish in Nova Granada and our students followed lectures at the diocesan seminary.  These four years of theology prepared him for his priestly functions. His superior was still Fr Enrique Lasuen who followed him with considerable care and understanding.

On 20th December 1964 with three others he was ordained priest; he spent his first years as religious-priest mainly in our schools in the south of Minas Gerais.

Our benefactor, Archbishop João Resende Costa, of Belo Horizonte, asked us if we would take on the parish of St John Baptist at Santa Luzia. Fr João Batista was its first Betharramite parish priest.  For nine years he dedicated himself to the service of his people.  By his presence in a poor area at the limits of his parish, the parish of Our Lady of the Beautiful Branch, Villa Jacqueline was born.

Later on we met him at Passa Quatro, parish priest at Tres Pontas, at Nova Granada, at Conceicão, Rio Verde. But it was his three mandates as Vice Provincial which caused him greatest sufferings. His heart bore the consequences.  He bore his illness for several years and finally died of bone cancer.

He was deeply attached to the Congregation, even with his own way of doing things.  His disappearance reminds us of the mystery of the human being: “We carry this treasure in pots of clay”.  As he gradually withdrew from us, it was a cry for help and understanding on our part. The Congregation, like the Church, must integrate into the wider community those who have problems of adaptation to a uniformity which is not always real unity.

 

Antonio Scarpa. scj

 


 

On July 1st, Mrs Nélida, the mother of Fr Gustavo Agín scj, the Regional Superior of the Region Fr Augusto Etchecopar, passed away. We feel close to Fr Gustavo and his family in praying the Risen Lord for their mother, that she may be welcomed into the arms of God the Father.

On July 10th, Mr. Raymond Madej, father of Fr Anton Madej scj of the community of Olton (England Vicariate), died. We are close to Fr Anton and his family in this time of sorrow, and we raise our prayer to the Risen Lord for his father.

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