2015-11-04 13:55:00

Jesuits of Eastern Africa, part 1


Indian Jesuit missionary, Fr. Francis Rodrigues is the administrator of the Pedro Arrupe Community, the retirement home for the Jesuits of Eastern Africa, in Karen, near the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.  Hailing from Mangalore, in southern India’s Karnataka state, the 77-year old priest joined the Jesuit Province of Bombay in 1964 and was ordained priest in 1974.  After working in Bombay for some years, he opted to work in Kenya where he arrived in 1978, and began working in Thicka near the capital, Nairobi. There, among other things he served as chaplain to the Assumption Sisters and ministered to children and students at Karibaribi.

After a couple of years in Kenya, Fr. Rodrigues was sent to Tanzania, for which he had to learn the Kiswahili language.  In Tanzania he worked at Dodoma for two years and then at Tabora until 1984, when the Jesuit Provincial of Eastern Africa called him back to Nairobi, Kenya, to serve as treasurer, a job carried out under the next 5 provincials.  Currently he runs the Pedro Arrupe Community, looking after 14 elderly retired Jesuits.  Fr. Rodrigues, a Jesuit for over 50 years now, was in Rome recently and we came to know more about the Jesuits of Eastern Africa.  Today, he begins the first of a two-part interview explaining the extent of the Jesuit Province of Eastern Africa.








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