missionaries ONE PLACE missionary Father Dermot Roache, S.M.A. finds God is in the South African love of music.
Mission to South Africa: Living in joyful hope Despite the many difficult tasks of being a missionary—not to mention the elephants and rhinos—Father Dermot Roache sees hope. “We are a people of the Resurrection! Hope is part of our being.”
by
Bob Armbruster
A
personable Irish American from Brooklyn, Father Dermot Roache sometimes enjoys a hearty laugh in his South African parish. Take the time he was baptizing 15 children. A boy 4 years old absolutely loved the pouring of the water on his head. As
Bob Armbruster, a retired journalist, earned a master’s degree in theology with a specialty in church history at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. He has a particular interest in American Catholic history and teaches part time in the satellite programs of Jersey City-based Saint Peter’s College.
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soon as the last child was baptized, the 4-year-old ran from his mother like a bullet, stopped at the baptismal font, and said, “Some more please!” Thank God Roache has moments of laughter, because a man who joins the Society of African Missions is not in for a soft job or an easy life. And members of the community—popularly known as the SMA Fathers (Societas Missionum ad Afros in Latin) must be prepared for surprises. When he was ordained on December 29, 2007 at his community’s provincial headquarters in Tenafly, New Jersey, the 37-year-old priest expected an assignment to Kenya, where he had prepared for the priesthood. But within
VISION 2010
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6/8/2009 11:09:43 AM