2009-09-22 15:02:07

Church in India mourns Jesuit village reformer


(Sept.22,2009): Church people and social workers in India are mourning the death of a Belgian Jesuit missionary who used Gandhian methods to revolutionize village life in India. 88-year-old Fr. Michael Anthony Windey, founder of the Village Reconstruction Organization (VRO), died on Sept. 20 at Heverle in Belgium, where he had been undergoing treatment for liver cancer since January. Sabien Arnaut, Fr. Windey's niece, told UCA News from Belgium that her uncle's last wish was to return to India, but doctors ruled it out, saying he would not survive a flight back. She said "He was very weak and could barely walk. Though the doctors gave him only a few weeks to live, his sudden death was unexpected." His funeral is scheduled for Sept. 26 in Belgium.
Fr.Windey was born in 1921, the fourth of 12 children. He joined the Jesuits in 1938, travelled to India in 1946 and was ordained a priest in 1950. Until 1969 he worked in Ranchi, eastern India, where he began social work in 1967 when a famine hit Bihar state.
He shifted to the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in 1969 to work among cyclone victims and later set up VRO, following Mahatma Gandhi's call to reconstruct village life as the way to bring about India's advancement.
Fr. Windey "believed in the Gandhian way of developing villages, and understood the Indian ethos and culture," said Fr.,Anthoniraj Thumma, secretary of the ecumenical Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches. "He was more Indian than Belgian, and we will miss him and his social service," he added.
Jesuit Father Peter Daniel, currently in charge of Jesuit projects in the state, said the foreign missionary’s death had saddened his confreres in India. "We will hold a Mass for Father Windey on the day of his funeral in Belgium," he told UCA News. The Andhra Pradesh Jesuits also plan to conduct a 30th-day memorial service and to erect a memorial at the VRO headquarters in Guntur. Father Daniel said donors have expressed their willingness to support VRO's future projects.








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