rom Italy to the U.S. to Africa, and back to the United States, Fr. Victor Mosele is now a missionary to a new population – college students.
A missionary with the St. Francis Xavier Foreign Mission Society (Xaverian Missionaries), Father Mosele lived in Africa nearly 30 years. But after being captured a second time during the civil war in Sierra Leone, he was brought back to his community in Wisconsin.
Since his return five years ago, he has worked in campus ministry in several state universities. Currently he is working with students at St. Paul’s University Catholic Center on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
Why college students?
“Why working with the college student?” Father Mosele said. “Because that’s where the young people are who tomorrow will be leaders in our society.”
In developed countries like the U.S., the focus of the Xaverian Missionaries – an exclusively foreign mission order – is to bring about a greater awareness of the missionary nature of the church and to promote vocations for missionary work, Father Mosele said.
This is a way he can do that. “I am not here to recruit, specifically, I am here to be a promoter of missionary understanding in the church,” said Father Mosele. “And yes, in doing so, if someone is inspired by God to join to the missionary church, here I am and I am ready to help in that line.”
Road to a Mission
From a young age Father Mosele felt the call to the priesthood. He was born and raised in northern Italy, in the town of San Bonifacio, Verona, and was taught in a school run by the Xaverian Missionaries. Even in grade school he sensed that a priest is what he would become.
But, he said, he didn’t like the idea of being a diocesan priest. “I always thought, even in those early years, that the diocesan priesthood was rather confined – rectory, church, church, rectory,” he said. “This is a very human reasoning… and eventually, of course, this thing has given way to something much more profound, but it is how I thought as a child.”
The missionary life, on the other hand, struck a chord with the young Victor Mosele. In the 1940s, he met several missionaries who had been in China when they visited his parish for a mission appeal. He developed a relationship with them that lead to an attraction for the missionary life.
And as he got older, that attraction deepened. He joined the Xaverian Missionaries in 1952 and was sent to the United States as a student, with other seminarians. At age 23, he was prepared to take his final vows and receive the diaconate.
By the time that decision came, he had deepened his understanding of missionary life and religious life. He was ordained a priest for the Xaverians in 1960 at his community in Franklin, Wis., by then-Auxiliary Bishop of Milwaukee Roman Atkielski.
Before his final step, he had doubts whether this was the right decision. But life, Father Mosele said, is made of many doubts – particularly when faced with such lifelong decisions.
“I had a lot of doubts and problems and difficulties,” he said, “but eventually, little at a time, I was able to overcome all of them.”
Missionary work
In 1971 Father Mosele was assigned to Sierra Leone, a small country on the West African coast between Guinea and Liberia, slightly smaller in size than South Carolina.
Although rich in natural resources, the area is poor because of a lack of development. At present the per-capita gross income is only the equivalent of $400 per year, but when Father Mosele began his work there as a missionary, that figure was closer to $200.
He spent nearly 30 years in the country, working as a school builder, teacher,
nurse, parish priest, and prison chaplain. At one point he was in charge of all 33 Catholic elementary schools in the region.
In order to teach the message of God, he said, you first have to see to the basic needs of the people. Once they have warmed to your presence, then you can begin to share with the the Good News.
Civil War
In 1991, the country erupted into civil war, part of a wider regional conflict. Caught in the middle, Father Mosele was captured by the Revolutionary United Front Rebels in 1999 and held prisoner. He was eventually released, but 10 months later he was captured in another attack. He left the country in December 2000 after escaping captivity.
He has written a book recently called “Running for My Life, to be published by E.T. Nedder in October, detailing his capture and subsequent release. In it, he writes of what some might call a horrific experience, but also of the generosity of the people who had so recently been receiving help from him, now giving him aid during his imprisonment.
Those experiences have not changed how Father Mosele feels about the missionary work there. He has been “grounded,” as he calls it, here in the U.S. since he escaped Sierra Leone the last time, but he is hoping and praying that some day he will be called back. He loved his work in Africa.
“You don’t see in any other place such a response of the population to what you’re doing. It is a tremendous satisfaction – yes, admittedly it is
achieved through very harsh physical and sometimes psychological price to pay, but it gives a reward which is unique.”
Vocations
At St. Paul’s, Father Mosele is working with a new generation, some of whom may be interested, like him when a youth, in the missionary priesthood.
Though not his only goal, “they are still within that age bracket where conceivably one or the other might say, ‘Hey, why don’t I become a missionary?’” Father Mosele said. That is one of the reasons for his presence.
“It is not anything that you inculcate, that you arouse from whatever you do or you write or you preach – no. You do write, you do preach, you do talk. But eventually the response is very much related to the disposition the person has to be open to these values.”
It does not take a particular kind of person to be a missionary, Father Mosele said. Rather, he said, it is a question of your responding to the grace of God, your commitment to serving God.
“It is not so much what kind of person you must be; it is a question of what kind of person are you ready to be for the sake of God’s love and God’s call.”
(From Catholic Herald - Madison)