MT HAGEN (PNG): 1st May 2005 -- The Rome appointed new Rector of the Good Shepherd Seminary in the Archdiocese of Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea, is Fr. Zdzislaw Z. Kruczek, CSMA, Congregation of St Michael Archangel or Michaelites. The CSMA were founded by a Polish ex-Salesian who was only recently beatified by Pope John Paul II.  The CSMA also, recently, were admitted to membership of the Salesian Family.

    The new rector was born on 9 January 1945 in Poland. He studied philosophy and theology at the Przemysl Institute of Theology and was ordained priest on 23 July 1973. He has a Masters in theology from the Catholic University of Lublin (1976). In 1977 he went to work in Mount Hagen in Papua New Guinea. While there he followed a correspondence course in Ancient and Modern History offered by Armidale University (Australia) 1982/84. From 1989-1991 he studied for a Licentiate in Missiology and Doctorate in Theology at the Warsaw Theology Academy.  He continued his studies in Church History and Church’s Social Teaching (1992/93).

    At the beginning of 1994 Fr Kruczek, more commonly known as Fr Ziggy, returned to Papua New Guinea to work on the staff at Good Shepherd. He has published numerous books and articles and is a member of four academies.  In September of last year he took part in the Salesian Family Missionary Seminar in Port Moresby, and his contribution by way of a reflection on the Michaelite missionary experience in PNG can be read in the booklet produced after the seminar by the Missions Department, Rome.  A copy of that booklet has gone to all participants and to most EAO provinces.

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