austraLasia #2976
The Lord called Fr Hans Dopheide to Himself
on Christmas Day
MELBOURNE:
26 December 2011 --
Salesians and many past pupils and friends of Fr Hans
Dopheide, in
Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Pakistan, amongst other places,
give
thanks to God for the life and witness of Fr Hans Dopheide, a
Salesian
with a great missionary heart and action. They will give
thanks to God
for his Mercy in calling Himself to Him on Christmas night,
after Hans'
long struggle with dementia which had robbed him of the
ability to look
back on what he had achieved, or even to communicate with
people. But
that takes nothing at all away from the greatness of this man,
which
his own province of Australia-Pacific will recall in a
particular way
as he is laid to rest in the Salesian cemetery at Sunbury
(Melbourne).
Hans
was born in Holland, but the family moved to New Zealand when
he was
still a boy, and subsequently to Australia, where Hans joined
the
Salesians and made his first profession in 1957. If I can be
allowed a
personal memory, Hans was someone I knew very closely and had
worked
with over many years, and he kept in touch until it was
impossible for
him to do so any further - when I arrived in Oakleigh as a
young lad,
at what was then called the Archbishop Mannix Missionary
College, Hans
was one of the first Salesian I recall clearly (Peter Swain
was the
first): he taught me leather work, and my breviary still has
the cover
he helped me to make! It probably says more for the quality of
the
material and the guidance I received, than my craftsmanship,
but it is
a clue to what would become Hans' great gift - he could make,
build and
teach others to do so, and he did this until he was unable to
do so any
more.
Theological studies were done at
Castellmare di Stabbia, in Italy, but Hans had already begun
the
'agricultural' side of his career, as a practical trainee at
Sunbury.
He returned there after ordination and ran the agricultural
aspect of
that college for many years subsequently, until the mid 1980s
in fact
when he moved to Samoa to tackle the first of many great
building and
educational enterprises - the outstanding Don Bosco Technical
Centre at
Alafua in Samoa, the pride of that nation, he built up brick
by brick.
Not only that; it stood the test of two of the most
devastating
cyclones Samoa has ever known: Olf in 1990 and Val in December
1991.
This latter destroyed almost every large building in the
country - but
not those built by Hans Dopheide! In fact Samoa and Tokelau
subsequently adopted a building code on the basis of Hans'
efforts -
and with some personal guidance from him.
A
little less than ten years later, after a brief spell in
Australia at
St Jospeh's Ferntree Gully, Hans applied for the fledgling
mission to
be set up in Pakistan at Lahore and Quetta. In ACG 397, the
Rector
Major named him amongst others as a 'founder' in our Region.
And that
he was. Fr Miguel Ruiz, who has succeeded Hans at the
Don Bosco
College at Lahore, which again Hans built up brick by brick,
says in a
brief note: "Hans was indeed a great Salesian, and I was lucky
to spend
with him his last 3 years (in Pakistan)". Miguel then attached
a number
of photos of youngsters at the school celebrating in
preparation for
Christmas and comments that they are the "last living monument
to Hans".
We
are grateful for the life of this good Salesian. Christmas, we
know,
intertwines birth and hint of death, and this particular event
completes
the cycle - to birth again, into eternal life.
--------
Please pray, too, for another fine Salesian whom the doctors
say has
little time left amongst us: Fr Dan O'Sullivan of the
Australia-Pacific
Province, originally from Cork, Ireland.
Dan turned 93 last July.