Pacific Regional Seminary - CathNews New Zealand

Texan Priest walks 34 miles in Pacific Regional Seminary fundraiser

admin — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:04:39 +0000

As part of a parish fundraiser, a priest in Texas, Father Brian Guerrini, recently walked 34 miles from Sacred Heart in Edinburg to the Queen of Peace Church in Harlingen.

Guerrini began the walk at 5:30am and hoped to be in Harlingen by 4pm but he arrived a few hours earlier than that.

The run/walk event was part of an event the parish is conducting to raise money for the Pacific Regional Seminary in Fiji. So far they have collected about $1,000.

Guerrini said the parish does not have any particular goal in mind as to how much they want to collect.

"Whatever we can raise, we'll send," Guerrini said.

The Queen of Peace parish is located in the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley.

The parish was founded by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (the Picpus Fathers) in 1967.

Some members of the Congregation are studying for the priesthood at the Pacific Regional Seminary.

Guerrini was a member of the founding Picpus formation community in Fiji when it began in 2015.

He has been at Sacred Heart since February 2016 and will be leaving next month for a new assignment in Tonga.

Guerrini said he wanted to do something meaningful before he went.

He has participated in many races in the past including an ultra marathon that was a 70-mile race through the Appalachian Mountains.

Source

Texan Priest walks 34 miles in Pacific Regional Seminary fundraiser

10 Pacific Regional Seminary students ordained deacon

admin — Mon, 16 May 2016 17:00:59 +0000

Ten students of Pacific Regional Seminary of St Peter Chanel were ordained deacon by Soane Cardinal Mafi of Tonga on Sunday 8th May in at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Suva, Fiji.

The deacons come from six different Pacific Island nations.

Three were ordained for the Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia.

Two are members of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) from the Solomon Islands.

Three are Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, (MSC) two from Kiribati and one from Fiji.

Two are Marists (Society of Mary), one from Vanuatu and one from Tonga

See list of Deacons and Photographs

Cardinal Soane Patita Mafi is the first former student of the Pacific Regional Seminary to be named a Cardinal.

Since 1972 Pacific Regional Seminary offers training for the Roman Catholic priesthood for candidates from the various dioceses of Episcopal Conference of the Pacific (CEPAC) and for religious congregations with houses affiliated to the Seminary.

The Seminary offers a Diploma in Theology and a Bachelor of Divinity which are accredited by the South Pacific Association of Theological Schools (SPATS).

In addition, since it is affiliated to the Urbaniana University in Rome, the students of PRS who complete the requirements can also obtain a Bachelor of Theology degree.

The Archbishops and Bishops of CEPAC constitute the Seminary's Board of Trustees which sets policies and sees to the supervision of priestly formation at the Seminary.

A Senate composed of four bishops is elected by the Board of Trustees for a term of three years.

The Senate looks after the general administration and supervision of the seminary.

The Rector and the members of Staff take care of the details of the day to day administration.

Two representatives of the affiliated colleges, elected from among the congregations who have affiliated colleges, also participate in the deliberations of the Senate.

10 Pacific Regional Seminary students ordained deacon

Pacific Seminary has online access to world's best resources

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 19:04:34 +0000

The seminary librarians at the Pacific Regional Seminary in Suva have catalogued 19,000 records and put the catalogue online.

They have been assisted by Hans Arns who is the project coordinator of Sharing the Word an initiative linking up Catholic seminary libraries and librarians throughout the world.

This is being done to provide all seminarians and theology students in Africa, Asia and Oceania with the best possible resources.

Sharing the Word hopes to give every Catholic theological student equal access to the world's best resources.

At present most seminary libraries in Africa, Asia and Oceania are isolated and poorly resourced.

This lack of resources affects the ability of the students to learn and achieve.

The Pontifical Mission Societies in Australia (known as Catholic Mission) is the lead agency for the Sharing the Word project.

The first step in the project is updating libraries and providing online resources is to install a computerised library automation system (catalogue) in every library.

The system was brought online in 2013 and is hosted in Sydney.

This means Sharing the Word is taking care of backing up the data and maintaining the system software.

When PRS began the work of cataloguing, the internet connectivity was slow and unreliable.

To provide uninterrupted service to the library the software and the data were duplicated on the local server.

The library used the local system to record loans and returns where necessary.

The updated data was then automatically sent to Sydney whenever the internet was available.

Internet reliability and speed is not an issue any more in Suva and it will not be an issue anywhere in the near future.

Catholic Mission will also assist each seminary to acquire a server and a number of workstations the librarians and students can use to access the available resources.

Hans is now busy finding free and up-to-date material that seminary students will all be able to access once the system has been installed in their seminary.

Who is using Sharing the Word?

Source

Sharing the Word
Image: Pacific Regional Seminary

Pacific Seminary has online access to world's best resources

Suva - Pacific Regional Seminary to celebrate 40 years

admin — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 19:30:00 +0000

On the weekend of the 23^rd to 25^th August 2013, Pacific Regional Seminary of St. Peter Chanel in Suva Fiji will celebrate 40 years of its existence.

A good representation from the various dioceses and congregations is expected to attend. These include diocesan priests from Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, New Caledonia and Kiribati as well religious from the same areas. There will be some coming who did not reach ordination but who still greatly value the experience of training at Pacific Regional Seminary. It is hoped that some of those present will include the Bishops and Archbishops who are former students of PRS.

Because this is the 50^th anniversary of Vatican II and also the Year of Faith, the weekend in August will be focused especially on the Vatican II documents on the ministry of Priests and on formation. These will be part of an ongoing series of lectures which have run through this year on the documents of Vatican II.

The Pacific Regional Seminary was the fruit of the Vatican II's emphasis on building up the local church and of the Vatican II structure of the Conference of Bishops. The first Plenary session of the Bishops' Conference of the Pacific (CEPAC) took place in 1968. By the time of the third meeting in Sydney in 1970, serious consideration was given to establishing a regional seminary for the Pacific and a decision was made at the same meeting.

Suva was the chosen site and Archbishop George Pearce (Archbishop of Suva) was entrusted with the task of purchasing a site and putting up the buildings. A temporary site at the Bishop Court close to the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart opened on 6^th March 1972 and was used for the first eighteen months.

Eighteen students - religious and diocesan - from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa started in 1972. But by June 1973 the new site and buildings at Suva point were opened with another seven students added to the numbers. Within 8 years, by 1980, the number of students reached beyond 100.

Source

PRS
Image PRS

Suva - Pacific Regional Seminary to celebrate 40 years