Great changes have been afoot among the Vincentian community in the western part of the United States over the past months. 

 

On January 24, 2010, after much hard work and many prayers, we merged three of the five American provinces of the Congregation of the Mission into one new province.

 

The Midwest Province based in Saint Louis, the Southern Province based in Dallas, and the Province of the West based in Los Angeles will now be known as the Western Province and it will be based in Saint Louis.

 

The reasons behind the merger are many, but the underlining purpose is that through consolidating the three smaller provinces into one larger one, we can better serve the poor, and serving the poor is at the heart of what we do as Vincentians.

 

 

A New Provincial Superior

With the merger of the three provinces, our Superior General, Father G. Gregory Gay, C.M. has appointed a new Provincial Superior for the Western Province.  He is Father Perry Henry, C.M.

 

Father Henry attended Saint Mary’s Seminary here in Perryville, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy in 1979.  He received his Master of Divinity degree at DeAndreis Seminary in Lemont, Illinois in 1983, and was ordained on June 11, 1983.

 

He later earned his Doctor of Ministry degree at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1998.  Father Henry has served in the Southern Province throughout his priestly life.

 

He was the pastor for thirteen years at Saint Joseph’s Church in New Orleans.  He has also served on the Board of Trustees of DePaul University in Chicago, and as the Assistant Provincial in the Southern Province.

 

Father Henry founded and directed the Learning Clubs of Southwest Arkansas, an after-school study program for at-risk youth in four counties in southern Arkansas. 

 

He established the Rebuild Center, a one-stop, multi-service recovery center in New Orleans for the homeless and those displaced by Hurricane Katrina.  He has also coordinated the establishment of a sister province relationship between the Southern Province in the United States and the Northern Province in India.

 

Father Henry brings a wealth of experience in leadership roles and hands on pastoral ministry to the poor to his new position.  I have had the pleasure of working with Father Henry for a number of years in the Southern Province, and know that our new province is in very capable hands.

 

The words Father Henry uses as his personal motto are taken from Micah 6:8—“We are called to act with justice… to love tenderly… to serve one another; to walk humbly with God!”

 

We here at our Lady’s Association look forward to working with Father Henry in the future, and wish him well in his new assignment.