The Province of Paris confirms the death of Fr. Claudio OJEDA Y PEREZ, CM. on the Madrid crash of a Spanair flight. He was returning to visit his family and undergo health tests. Fr. Elie DELPLACE, CM, Provincial leader of Paris and the region of Cameroon, provides an early summary of this confrere’s promising ministry. (Tranlastion to follow in a “Comment” as soon as it is available.)
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Due to transmission problems here is the delayed translation from the Provincial of Paris. The translation was provided by THomas Krafinski, C.M.
Paris, August 21, 2008
Dear confreres and friends,
On Wednesday, the 20th of August 2008, the reading from the Gospel called to mind the workers chosen in the last hour [Matt. 20, 1 – 16]: “The Parable upsets our usual ideas: it invites us to surpass strict justice to open ourselves to the goodness of God.” Claudio had certainly meditated on this text before leaving for the Canaries to rejoin his family and have some last medical tests before going back to the Mission in Cameroon . . . In France, the television news broadcast the accident that happened to flight JK 5022 in Madrid . . . We have ties to a number of the victims, as we learned when the TV news gave a list of many victims from our part of the world . . .
On Thursday, the 21st of August, we read the Parable of the king who invited everyone to the wedding of his son [Matt. 22: 1 – 14]; “the wedding, the feast are two images which, in the Scriptures, serve to describe the union of God and God’s People” and so it was that we learned that in the long list of victims of the airplane accident in Madrid was the name of our confrere, Fr. Claudio OJEDA Y PEREZ. I told myself is couldn’t be possible; that there was an error and that he had gotten thru this test as he had those he had already passed. But from Spain, the news from our confreres confirmed that he really was among the victims even before the official confirmation.
The next day, Friday the 22 of August, the text from the Gospel of Matthew whispers into our hearts: “You will love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. This is the great, and the first, commandment. And this is the second, which is like it: you will love your neighbor as yourself.” [Matt. 22: 34 – 40] Our brother, Claudio, and all the other victims finally contemplate the Source of this love. We also recognize what was at the heart of Claudio’s passionate life. We await the latest news from our Spanish confreres and we want them to know that we share this with his family and friends, and cannot forget the Spanish people.
Fr. Claudio OJEDA Y PEREZ was born on July 9th, 1946, joined the Congregation of the Mission on the 21st of September, 1967. He was ordained a priest on the 1st of January, 1978, in the Province of Salamanca. After the General Assembly of 1998, with the permission of the Provincial of his home Province, he joined the Region of Cameroon, Province of Paris, in September of 1998, first at the Seminary of St. Vincent de Paul, then in the parish of Nsimalen, with the last months at the regional house in Douala. His strength, his dynamism, his consistency, and his determination to work against difficulties certainly helped the young Region of Cameroon plant the foundations which we want to consolidate now. Claudio did well in his financial services to the region and accompanied numerous development projects to high standards for the Congregation, the Vincentian Family, and for numerous other religious congregations . . . At Yaounde and at Douala he was known . . . and those who were with him in Cameroon can tell many anecdotes about the iron workers and even about the port at Douala when he worked to send off a container . . .
Without putting together an exhaustive list, we can single out his investment in the parishes of St. Augustine on the Sonel plateau and of Sts. Peter and Paul in Nsimalen, his involvement in the construction of the St. Vincent de Paul school, the establishment of the Nkol-Afeme Center of Information and of the carpenter shop that greeted the apprentices . . . he supported the confreres of Cameroon in their different projects and represented them to their partners in Spain and elsewhere. Some days ago, the Regional Superior presented to the Provincial Council plans to acquire of land for the construction of a Regional House near Douala . . . We must also mention his presence to the Daughters of Charity of Equatorial Guinea: during these past months a project for planting the Congregation there was being clarified . . .
“How can we go on without him?” Even if our discussions were sometimes animated, that’s the question that comes back to us now that he has left us in this tragic way. We follow the way with a great emptiness . . . Like the disciples . . . We bear this grief with his family, with the confreres of his home province, the Congregation in Spain and around the world. We pray for him and for the other victims of this terrible accident, and we turn with confidence toward the Master of the Mission . . .
Fr. Elie DELPLACE, C.M.
Provincial of the Paris Province
and of the Region of Cameroon.