Marco Carvalho
The Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus established earlier this week a new Formation House in Taipa island. The project was officially inaugurated and blessed last Monday and brought Father Carlos Luis Suárez Codorníu once again to Macau. The Superior General of the Priests of the Sacred Heart introduced the vocational center, whose fundamental purpose is to prepare postulants “so that they can better serve the Church in China”. The new Blessed Juan María de la Cruz Formation House is currently home to four young men, three from Vietnam and one from India, but the number may increase as early as next year, Father Carlos Luis Codorniú told “O Clarim”.
Despite being small, the Dehonian Community in Macau is rather active. What brings you to Macau? To what do we owe the honor of your visit?
Father Carlos Luis Codorniú: The reason why I travelled to Macau was, first and foremost, to visit my companions, who are working here. First, I went to Hong Kong. I have been in Hong Kong, with the Dehonian priests that are serving there. Here in Macau, the Dehonian community isn’t much bigger. Although there are only nine Dehonian priests in Macau, they are, as you were saying, actively engaged in a wide spectrum of activities. They are devoted and highly committed missionaries. It is quite important for our Congregation that they continue to serve the local Church, as they have been doing. However, the main purpose of my visit to Macau was to witness the launch of our new Formation House. The Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has decided to start a small community here, in Macau, where young religious men can prepare themselves to, later on, better serve the Church in China. These young men will study theology in Macau.
This new Formation House joins the ranks of several others that the Dehonian Congregation already oversees in Asia. There’s on in India…
F.L.S.C: That’s right. We oversee Formation Houses in Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. We have been in these nations for quite a while. The Dehonian missionaries have been in Asia for over a century. We began our mission in Indonesia and soon after we established ourselves in India, then in the Philippines and later on in Vietnam. More recently, we put down roots in Hong Kong and in Macau, but we have missionaries spread all over Asia. We are currently establishing some contacts in Cambodia. We wish to maintain this dynamic: we wish to keep expanding throughout Asia and to lend our support to young communities, in places where there’s a need for people who are willing to serve the Church and the Gospel. For the time being, however, Macau and our new Formation House are at the heart of our concern. Four young men – three from Vietnam and one from India – are currently the focus of our attention. We are hoping to add more next year. We want to be able to be with them, to accompany them from the very beginning of their spiritual journey. This way, they will be able to experience the culture of Macau, Hong Kong and Mainland China and prepare themselves adequately for the Mission that awaits them.
Was this new Formation House already inaugurated? With which organizations will the Dehonian Congregation partner with?
F.C.L.C: The Formation House was formally inaugurated last Monday. On Monday, our Congregation celebrated the memory of Blessed Juan María de la Cruz, who was martyred during the Spanish Civil War. We placed ourselves under his protection, so that the testimony of this Holy religious man, who sacrificed his life to the utmost, may also inspire the mission of our young companions, here in Macau. The young people who are currently incorporated in our Formation House will study at the Seminary of Saint Joseph. Hand in hand with the local Church, the University of Saint Joseph will be part of this journey. Among us, there are also some instructors, such as Father Eduardo [Agüero], who teaches at the University. We are obviously keen on being part of this academic world, because it constitutes an opportunity to foster new friendships and to create contacts. It is important to offer them this sort of formation, to carry out this sort of theological reflection in Macau. We believe it is very important to think theologically about the reality of our world, the reality of the Church in this region of Asia.
The main purpose of this new Formation House, you were saying, is to prepare these young men to better serve Chinese Catholics and the Chinese Church. Will the Dehonian fraters formed in Macau serve the Church of Macau?
F.C.L.C: Exactly. Our first goal is to ensure that they complete their studies. We need to make sure that these young people receive a good theological formation and that they dedicate themselves to the study of the sacred matters. After that, we need to offer them a good pastoral experience. But, to answer your question… Yes, the idea is that, by studying in Macau, they can then become familiar with the language and culture. We want them to learn Cantonese and Mandarin, so that they can understand—and, more than anything else, be willing to embrace—this immense and challenging reality that is the Chinese world and the Chinese culture.
The priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus were put in charge of the Village of Our Lady, in Ká-hó. Is this assignment consistent with the Dehonian charisma?
F.L.S.C: Yes. First of all, because, well, the origins of this place are in line with our spiritual values. As you rightly recalled, it was a place designed to heal, to cure, to repair. Our charisma is precisely centered on the act of reparation, on unrecognized local, on the attention to those whose dignity is not recognized, who are marginalized. The beautiful Church of Our Lady of Sorrows is, somehow, in a similar situation. This is a somewhat marginalized reality, due to its location, but also to the fact that, in the past, this place was used to help our brothers and sisters affected by leprosy. The past, in a certain sense, is calling on us to maintain the same level of attention to those who may need it the most. To my great joy, on Sunday, when I presided over the Eucharist, I saw a very well-staffed Church, with a quite significant attendance. Most of those that took part in the celebration were migrant workers. It seems very beautiful and quite appropriate to me that we can look after people who left their home countries to survive or to ensure better living conditions, so that they can help their families. In a way, the Eucharist is a way of making them feel loved and accompanied by the Church of Macau, at whose service we place ourselves. This availableness is part of our mission. This project in Ká-Hó, I was told, is taking its first steps. Currently, the Village of Our Lady comes alive mainly on weekends, especially on Sundays. But as soon as the space is fully rehabilitated, the adjacent house can be made available to groups for retreats and gatherings. We believe that it will soon be recognized as a place at the service of the Church and of Christian communities in need. That’s why we are there. In the future we hope to offer other sort of spiritual services. Currently, we already celebrate the Eucharist in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows every Sunday, but we hope that, little by little, we can offer other kind of activities, such as novenas and Christian formation. Our aim is always to walk hand in hand with the Catholic community.
You were mentioning the principle of reparation. It’s a central aspect of the Dehonian charisma. When one speaks of reparation, what exactly are we talking about?
F.L.S.C: Yes. For our founder, Father Jean-Léon Déhon, the two great pillars of our charisma are love and reparation. When someone contemplates the Sacred Heart of Jesus, they understand that Jesus came into this world to repair a wounded Humanity, a world aching with violence and selfishness. In our case, we want to take part in this process. Within the scope of reparation, we also include the value of the Eucharist. A part of our spirituality comes from the practice of Eucharistic adoration, which we see as a moment in which we come forward before the Lord present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We offer Him this world, we offer Him this reality, because He is the Lord who illuminates, He is the Lord who heals. This is part of our charisma. We always endorse and promote Eucharistic Adoration in our communities and we want Adoration to be part of our apostolate. We hope, therefore, to be able to offer more space for Eucharistic Adoration in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows and allow the lay faithful to participate in this reparation process that is born out of availability, love and willingness to be with the Lord.
In 2025, the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is commemorating the 100th anniversary of Father Dehón’s death. A century later, how contemporary is his message and his legacy? What are the main challenges faced by the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus?
P.L.S.C: The greatest challenge is, first and foremost, fidelity to the charisma that Father Déhon left us. Father Jean-Léon Déhon was a man of an impressive restlessness. He was deeply involved in the issues of his time. He was embroiled in the life of the Church, but he was also well aware of the issues affecting society. He was deeply involved the world of politics and social conflicts. When we look at Father Déhon’s example today, it’s not easy to understand how he managed to find time to pay attention to so many things, where he drew his force and inspiration from. But this, I guess, is what happens with the great men and the great women of the Church. In Father Déhon’s case, everything stemmed from a very profound and intense interior life. This is the great challenge that we, as Dehonians, face. We need to have the ability to maintain a time for listening, for prayer and for deepening our intimacy with the Lord, without confounding our mission with activism. It is also quite important to care for our fraternal life. Father Déhon founded a religious community, so that we can act together: nurturing human relationships among ourselves is crucial, so that we do not remain indifferent to what is happening in the world, to the call of the Church. The Church invites us to go out, to reach places no one wants to reach and to maintain a voice that arises not from our impulses and urges, but from our understanding of the Gospel. The Gospel will tell us how we can make a small gesture, how we can use our voice to encourage or solve, as far as possible, the issues that affect the world that surrounds us. In December, we will start a community in Cuba. Cuba is also a place where there is much suffering, due to the political and social situation. Yet, there are people who have never stopped longing for a greater knowledge of their faith, of their experience of God. We will try to develop our mission in a very marginalized diocese, where there is a great deal of needs. Some of our companions will settle there. I personally believe this is a good way to keep the memory of our founder alive. We don’t look at the past with nostalgia. We think about the beautiful legacy that our founder left us as our starting point, but we look forward, so that – just like Father Déhon did in his own time – we can be present in diverse realities: in the factory world, among workers, among businesspeople, in the media. We try to move forward and we try to do so with humility, but the most crucial aspect of our mission is to have an active presence in places that are platforms for service and for proclaiming the Gospel.
You were re-elected last year to a second six-year term as the Superior General of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. What do you say is the main mission of the Dehonian missionaries nowadays? Is it still to take the side of those who suffer?
F.L.S.C: Yes, but I must say that’s something that happens through direct inspiration from the Gospel. The Gospel invites us all to foster and nurture a closer relationship with this Samaritan culture that the Church must embody. That call, nevertheless, is an invitation that extends to all of us, to all the individuals that have heard the gospel of salvation. In our particular case, this call is closely linked to the process of reparation I’ve mentioned before. I believe that we must be present, in particular, in those places where love does not exist, where people do not see their dignity recognized and where indifference prevails. That is why we are beginning this new mission in Cuba and, hopefully, in many other places as well. We’re considering other places were our presence might be needed. We don’t know what the future has in store for us, but we are willing to forge new paths, that can open new doors, provide us with new encounters and new challenges. That’s where we want to be.
You share with Pope Leo XIV a solid knowledge of the South American reality, a reality often seen as peripheral. Does the future of the Church, as Pope Francis used to say, lie in the peripheries? Does it lie in areas that are usually forgotten, both geographically and socially?
F.L.S.C: Well, I would argue that the Church’s greatest challenge lies, first and foremost, in the heart. It lies in the heart of each person who embodies the Church, as we become more and more aware of what it means to be baptized, to be incorporated into the life of Christ. This should be a motivation to us all, so that we know how to place ourselves adequately. We all need to be aware of the place God reserved for each and every one of us. We need to understand where God wants us to be. In order to achieve that discernment, we must be able to, not only answer our calling, but also to reach out to the marginalized. We can encounter marginalized people even in the richest nations on Earth; we can find places and situations where there is a great deal of misunderstanding, intolerance and a profound lack of knowledge of some of the people that surrounds us, either because they are foreign or because we don’t share the same culture. This can happen right in the heart of Europe, but also in rural areas or doomed places, condemned to abandonment because they are very hard to reach. There is always a periphery close to us. Sometimes, we are the ones that place ourselves on the periphery. We choose to submit to situations of marginalization, because we are afraid to go beyond our own limits, beyond the margins of what we see as our safety and comfort. These are some of the peripheries that we will encounter along the way and that we need to overcome. We may find them in our own street or in a faraway land, but the fact is that we are never far from the peripheries and from situations in which people are marginalized.
In that sense, can the Sacred Heart of Jesus be a beacon of light that illuminates Catholics around the world?
F.C.L.S: I do believe so. I think the Sacred Heart of Jesus is precisely a rupture. This wound exists so that no obstacle can block the love which is born straight from the heart of Jesus. I do believe, however, that it is this love that leads us and that allows us to go beyond the peripheries, to go beyond the marginalization and the powerlessness of the Cross. Well, love conquers all. Love ultimately transforms into a new life, with Jesus’ victory over evil, over sin. We too are part of this story. It touches us too. With the grace of God and the Holy Spirit, it is up to us to be missionaries. And as we try to follow our journey, we need to keep in mind that we have many reasons to nurture hope and keep it alive. I believe we all want to be on the right side of history. We all want to look at the world with hope, especially nowadays, with so many conflicts and disasters. We all have reasons to be pessimistic or, perhaps, realistic, given the challenges we face. The world is plagued by conflicts and uncertainty and, given the scenario, it’s important to put our trust in God and be certain that he will not abandon us. We must, however, keep hope alive with concrete gestures, with concrete actions. That is the only way we can overcome the anxiety and selfishness that fear, itself, sometimes forces upon us. We all want to be safe, but we must realize that our safety also depends on the safety of others, that our dignity depends on the dignity of others. This is something that we should always keep in mind.
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