AIC Welcomes its new international Spiritual Advisor

Father Álvaro Mauricio Fernández Monselve from the Congregation of the Mission, Colombia Province, has been designated by the Superior General as International Assessor (Spiritual Advisor_ for AIC, Director of Vincentiana (the international magazine for the CM) and Assistant to the General Secretary of the Congregation of the Mission.  He had been the Spiritual Advisor of AIC-Colombia since 2012.  He has worked with AIC and Vincentian volunteers in Santiago de Cuba and Santa Rosa de Cabal in Colombia.

Father Álvaro Mauricio was born on 8^th October 1971 in Yarumal, Antioquia (Colombia) to a very large and religious family, comprised of 14 children and a mother and father.  He studied philosophy at the “La Milagrosa” (“Miracle”) Major Seminary in Medellin, the Internal Seminary in Bogota.  He then did a year of pastoral activities in Santa Rosa de Cabal and the first two years of theology studies at the “Villa Paul” Major Seminary in Funza.  In 1995, he volunteered for mission work in Cuba and it was there that he finished his theology studies at the San Carlos and San Ambrosio National Seminary in La Havana, Cuba.  He became a Deacon in Cuba and was later ordained as a Priest on 29^th June 1997 in Colombia.  He spent the first few years of his priesthood in Cuba, returning to the Province of Colombia in July 2000.

Father Álvaro Mauricio has been an educator and has served in various places as a Treasurer-Manager and has been member of the Economic Board of the Province.  This began during his priestly ministry while he was on mission in Cuba.  He worked at the “Merced” (“Mercy”) Sanctuary in La Havana; as Rector of the Church of San Francisco at the “Indígena Páez” Seminary in Santiago de Cuba; in the Curia of the Archdiocese of Villavicencio at the “Nuestra Señora del Carmen” Supreme Seminary; in the Diocese of Santo Domingo at the “San Pedro” Supreme Seminary in Los Colorados, Ecuador.  At the “Berceau” (“birthplace”) of St Vincent de Paul in France, he was responsible for welcoming pilgrims.  He is currently offering his services in Rome in the General Curia of the CM.

He received his bachelor’s degree in Theology from the Pontifical University of Janveriana in Bogota.  He completed a double master’s in History of the Church and Contemporary History at the Catholic Institute in Paris and the Sorbonne University in Paris.

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