Interviewer - As a New Englander, how did your family life eventually lead you to the Assumptionists?

Fr. Roland - I was born in Nashua, NH where my Dad was a shoemaker, with three sons and one daughter. My family spent many happy summers vacationing at Hampton Beach, NH. One summer I had a serious bicycle accident when I was nine years old. As a result, I permanently injured my left hand. It was during those summers that I met and got to know an  Assumptionist who was also on vacation. This was my initial contact which eventually led me to Assumption Prep and the College. While there it became clear to me that I wanted to become a priest and a missionary, so I eventually applied to Maryknoll but was rejected because of health reasons. In hindsight, I can now see that it was God leading me to the Assumptionists.

- Where did your studies and formation in the community take you?

- I entered the community in 1947 and did my novitiate in Canada, graduated from Assumption College in 1950 and went back to Canada and earned an STL from Laval University. In December, 1953 I was ordained and soon thereafter was sent to Mexico to teach English in a boys school. There I helped out in a rural parish on the outskirts of the city and saw the diversity and extremes of the country, as well as the city.

 Vocation Newsletter of the Assumptionists in Manila, September 2015

July 28, 2015 Butembo, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

On Sunday, July 27, 2015, in the diocese of Butembo-Beni (DRC), Most Rev. Melchisedech SIKULI PALUKU ordained 14 priests and 16 deacons during a Solemn Mass, accompanied by Most Rev. Janvier KATAKA, bishop of the diocese of WAMBA, and more than a hundred priests in Immaculate Mary Parish, run by the Assumptionists in the Kitatumba neighborhood of this ever-growing city.

Apart from five diocesan deacons, all the others ordained belong to religious congregations, all of them natives of the diocese. Among those ordained were 7 Assumptionist priests and 9 Assumptionist deacons; 3 Crozier priests and 2 deacons; one Carmelite priest, one Combonian priest, and one priest from the Apostles of Jesus, the only Congregation represented at the ceremony not yet implanted in the diocese of Butembo-Beni.

Dear Friends,

I received news this past week that a new outbreak of violence occurred some 25 miles north of Beni (see article on p. 2 with details and some background information on the situation in this region of the Congo). After a brief lull, it appears that rebel factions have re-mobilized and have set out to re-install their reign of terror in the area.

Thousands of internal migrants seek refuge in Beni as a result of regional conflict

In the same letter Fr. Protais, the provincial of the Assumptionists in the Province of Africa, told me that, because of the good news that fund-raising for a school for orphans of war in Beni is proceeding so quickly, he re-visited the site we have purchased for this project and met again with the architect to fine-tune the plans. He is suggesting that we name the school, “Prince of Peace”, as a sign of our desire to dedicate our efforts there to the larger goal of fostering peace in the region and bringing this already too lengthy conflict to an end.