Media Release

Mangaluru, Apr 22: Twenty-three sisters of Ursuline Franciscan congregation made their perpetual profession at St Vincent Ferrer Church, Valencia here on Friday, April 21.

They professed three vows namely chastity, poverty and obedience in the presence of Sr Susheela Sequeira, superior general of the congregation during the Eucharistic celebration.

The Mass was officiated by Dr Aloysius Paul D’Souza, bishop of Mangaluru and was concelebrated by about 74 priests and witnessed by a large number of sisters, parents and relatives of the sisters and well-wishers.

Prior to the perpetual profession, the 30 sisters underwent intense tertianship programme of four months at the generalate of the congregation at Derlakatte. Three of them made their perpetual profession in Dimapur, Nagaland on April 19 and 23 others, in Valencia, on April 21.

Two will make their perpetual profession in Lucknow and Uttar Pradesh on April 22 and two in Same, Tanzania on June 26.

Ursuline Franciscan congregation was founded in 1887 at Rosario Cathedral, Mangaluru as a pious association of St Ursula by the then parish priest Fr Urban Stein SJ to assist him in the pastoral works of the parish. Today the Ursuline Franciscan congregation has five provinces in India and one region each in East Africa and Europe with 900 and above sisters working in 37 dioceses.

The novices are trained in five novitiates – in Mangaluru, Mysuru, Lucknow, Dimapur in India and Same in Tanzania. The sisters of the congregation have ample scope to opt for frontier missions, to take a stand, and make a difference with the mind and heart of Christ.