Oblate Missionaries
elect new president
By Frank Flegel
REGINA — The Secular
Institute of Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate (OMMI) for the first
time elected a non-Quebecker as their new president. She is Anita Proude,
an American, who worked as a pastoral assistant in New Hampshire.
“This is the first
time in our 58-year history that someone outside Quebec was elected
as president,” said Marian Grady, pastoral assistant at Holy Child
Parish in Regina.
Grady attended the institute’s
General Assembly held Aug. 7 - 22 in Loretteville, Que. as one of 32
delegates from around the world. She said the new president is not only
bilingual but has some Spanish as well. The Institute includes Spanish
in the three languages it uses to communicate with members.
The president’s position
is administrative, so Proude will move to the institute’s headquarters
in Quebec.
The general assembly also
undertook a reorganization of its structure; instead of smaller districts,
delegates approved resolutions establishing five regions, recognizing
its growth into an international institute.
“We now have the Asia
and Indian Ocean district, Latin America and Europe and there will be
two in North America — a French-language Region and a French/English
region, but we haven’t decided how to divide them,” said
Grady.
The council will also be
smaller, with one representative from each of the five regions.
The Institute’s general
assemblies are held only every five years and this was Grady’s
first. She described it as an intense experience with days lasting from
08:30 to evening. “But I wasn’t as exhausted as I thought
I should feel because it was done in a prayerful atmosphere.”
All three official languages
were used in assembly masses and some homilists easily engaged the three
in homilies. Grady said it wasn’t confusing because you knew where
you were in the mass and you got the gist of what was being said in
the homily. “People who understood the other languages would sit
beside us and when necessary would translate for us.”
Secular Institutes of consecrated men and women began shortly after the Second World War. The Oblate Missionaires of Mary Immaculate is an organization of consecrated women founded in 1952 and later recognized as a secular institute by Pope John Paul II. They live their spirituality among the population. They wear no identifiable garb and carry no titles.
Their website describes its members as working in communion with the church, committing themselves to live the Gospel at the heart of the world by witnessing the love of Christ for every human being.
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