austraLasia #2863
 
Human, Christian, Salesian, Priestly Tenfold Fidelity

HONG KONG: 30 May 2011 -- With a Mass of Thanksgiving to God, May 30, 2011, Salesian Missionary House, Shau Kei Wan, Hong Kong (China) commemorates the 80th anniversary (1931-2011) of the priestly ordination of the first 10 graduates of the formation community of the China Province. Their ordination took place in the Hong Kong Cathedral at the hands of Bishop Enrico Valtorta PIME on Saturday, May 30, 1931.
    All 10 newly ordained were faithful to the end to their human, Christian, religious, and priestly vocation. All of them died Salesian priests. These 10 new priests belonged to the first batch of young Salesians who had received their whole initial formation in the China Province, from Novitiate to Priestly Ordination. Before them, all the missionaries arriving in China were already priests or brothers or professed candidates for the priesthood.
    The fidelity of these 10 is all the more striking since they lived through the most turbulent times in the history of the China Province: the first civil war of Republican China during the Northern Expedition, the Japanese invasion of China, the Second World War, the second civil war of Republican China resulting in the Communist take over, and the crisis of faith in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council.   
    The faithful 10 were an international group: one Irishman, a German, and eight Italians. In order of date of death, the ten  are: David Hourigan (10-07-1943), Mario Calvi (20-03-1972), Michele Suppo (13-11-1972), Natale Giuseppe Avalle (23-11-1974), Riccardo Musso (12-10-1978), Wilhelm Schutzdeller (01-11-1985), Pietro Pomati (27-03-1994), Mario Rassiga (    02-01-1999), Mario Acquistapace (25-09-2002), and Ercole Tiberi (04-04-2004).

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