Pope Francis has appointed the Superior General of the Religious Institute of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus (MCCJ) Auxiliary Bishop of Ethiopia’s Catholic Archdiocese of Addis Ababa that is under the pastoral care of Berhaneyesus Demerew Cardinal Souraphiel.
The Episcopal appointment of Mons. Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie that the Holy See Press Office published on Wednesday, November 6 was followed by a letter from MCCJ leadership to members, communicating the functioning of the General Council “in this time of transition”, to culminate in the election of a new Superior General.
When Consecrated Bishop, Mons. Gebresilasie, who has been assigned the Titular See of Cleopatris will assist the 76-year-old Cardinal. Elevated to Cardinal in February 2015, the Ethiopian member of the Congregation of the Mission (CM) has been at the helm of Addis Ababa Archdiocese since November 1997, when he was appointed Apostolic Administrator.
In a letter after the Episcopal appointment of Mons. Gebresilasie was made public, Rome-based MCCJ General Council member say that they have received the news with mixed “feelings and emotions, among which the gratitude to God prevails for the gift that has been given to us so far in the person of Fr. Tesfaye as our Superior General, as well as a confrere.”
“We recognize that the choice of his person also represents a gift for the service to the particular church for whose growth we as an Institute collaborate,” MCCJ General Council members say in the November 6 letter seen by ACI Africa.
They refer to the “canonical provision”, which they say stipulates that “any hierarchical function exercised in the Institute ceases at the very moment in which the news of the episcopal nomination of a confrere is published by the Holy See.”
“With this message we therefore wish to communicate to everyone the ways in which we intend to continue the service of the General Council in this time of transition,” MCCJ General Council members say in the letter that the Secretary General, Brother Daniele G. Giusti, signed.
In line with the highlighted canonical provision, the Vicar General has the mandate to convene Council meetings “to deal with ordinary and urgent business,” members of the MCCJ General Council say in their letter.
“Electronic correspondence intended for the Superior General must now be addressed to the Vicar General,” they say, and add, “Other communications can follow the usual channels of the assistants and the secretary general.”
In the November 6 letter, MCCJ General Council members have told their confreres that the “election of the Superior General will be called as soon as possible according to the modalities that we will discern in the coming days,” in line with the Institute’s Rule of Life and relevant statutes.
“We ask everyone to pray with us for our Institute, so that it may be ever more worthy of the task that our Holy Founder has entrusted to us and of the trust that the Holy Father reserves in us in choosing some of us for the ministry of the Episcopate,” they say.
The Rome-based leadership of the Religious Institute that St. Daniel Comboni founded in June 1867 express their spiritual solidarity with the Bishop-elect, saying, “We also pray for Monsignor Tesfaye, imploring for him all the graces he will need for his episcopal ministry.”
“Let us look with trust and serene entrustment to the Holy Virgin so that she may accompany us in this moment,” they add.
Mons. Gebresilasie was elected MCCJ Superior General during the 18th General Chapter in 2015; he was re-elected during the monthlong 19th General Chapter held in June 2022 at the Institute’s General House in Rome.
Earlier, he had served as MCCJ General Councilor responsible for Basic Formation and the circumscriptions of English-speaking Africa and Mozambique following his election to the General Council during the 17th General Chapter of 2009.
In the years preceding his election to the General Council, the Bishop-elect had served as Provincial Superior of the Comboni Missionaries in his native country of Ethiopia (2005-2009); he doubled as President of the Association of Major Superiors in the Horn of Africa nation.
Born in Harar, a city in Eastern Ethiopia, the Bishop-elect, who turned 55 in September made his perpetual profession in September 1994. He was ordained a Priest on 26 August 1995 in Addis Ababa.
The alumnus of the Rome based Pontifical Gregorian University where he obtained a Licentiate in Theology also holds a Diploma in Islamic Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome.
He also pursued Islamic studies at the Dar Comboni for Arabic Studies in Cairo, Egypt, and attended a formation course at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome.
The Bishop-elect is set to assist Cardinal Souraphiel in shepherding the people of God in the Ethiopian Metropolitan See that measures 31,224 square kilometers with a population of 11,150 Catholics representing less than one percent of the total population, according to the 2022 statistics.
The Archdiocese, which was erected in October 1951 as Vicariate Apostolic of Addis Ababa before being elevated to a Metropolitan See has three Suffragan Dioceses: Adigrat, Bahir Dar – Dessie, and Emdeber.
