austraLasia
1529
Sudden death of Fr
Valentin de Pablo, Regional for
Africa
ROME: 16th April 2006 -- The
official announcement, along with details that we do not presently have, will
come from ANS, but at the conclusion of the Easter midday meal today in Rome,
the Rector Major announced that he had just heard from the Africa West vice
province of the sudden death of Fr Valentin de Pablo, Regional Councillor for
Africa-Madagascar. He said that Valentin suddenly felt ill this morning -
from there on the situation became serious and ultimately fatal. As I say,
more details of the illness and circumstances will be transmitted via
ANS.
Valentin would have been 60 on 26th April. He had
first gone to Africa from Spain after his ordination in 1973, but was expelled
from Mozambique by the Marxist regime there five years later. He returned
in 1993 when the political situation in Mozambique changed, and he became
the Superior of the vice province there. From there he was elected to the
General Council, at GC25, as Regional Councillor for all
Africa-Madagascar.
This writer can say that he has lost a
personal friend - and that only suggests that for all of the region he was
responsible for, a thousand or more confreres would feel not only the same but
much, much more. That was the kind of man he was. He spoke good
English but often sought assistance (he was without a secretary) with written
material to see that it was correct. A few moments before leaving for
Africa he made a point of welcoming me to Nairobi for a meeting in May.
This was again a simple gesture of his that would have been multiplied a
thousand times for every confrere for whom he had direct responsibility as
Regional.
As Fr Chavez said at the end of lunch, it is
Easter, and we cannot understand the ways of the Lord except to know that this,
too, is part of Easter.
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