New National Director appointed for Pontifical Mission Societies

Thursday, May 16, 2013

The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, following a consultation with the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, has appointed Father Alex Osei, C.S.Sp., as Director of the Canadian English Sector of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS). He succeeds Mr. Robert Gutcher, who was Interim Director after the former PMS Director, Mrs. Marie Deans, had been obliged to discontinue work in 2012 because of serious illness. Since November 2008, Father Osei was director of Brottier House Spiritan Refugee Centre in Toronto.

Father Osei was born in Ghana, and is a citizen of both Canada and Ghana. After his first profession of vows in 1986 in The Gambia as a member of the Spiritans, he did his philosophical and theological studies in Nigeria, following which he was ordained priest on July 23, 1994. He holds a certificate in refugee studies, and has served as the chairperson of the Justice, Peace and Development program in Kaduna, Nigeria, which also included responsibility for organizing Women Empowerment Educational seminars. He has taught introductory courses to Canon Law in Nigeria, served on a regional marriage tribunal there, and was a member of the Board of Consultors of the Diocese of Kano, Nigeria, as well as a member of its Senate of Priests. In addition to nine years of previous pastoral work in Nigeria, he has held the following pastoral appointments in Canada: pastor in the Archdiocese of Regina, 2002-2008 (serving churches in Moose Jaw, Marquis and Central Butte), followed by chaplaincy work in the Archdiocese of Toronto with the French and English-speaking African Catholic community at Holy Name parish, Danforth, and also with the Ghanaian Catholic community at St. Andrew’s parish, Etobicoke.

The offices of the Canadian English Sector of the Pontifical Mission Societies are located in Toronto. Its website is http://www.missionsocieties.ca/

The Canadian French Sector offices for Pontifical Mission Societies (les Œuvres pontificales missionnaires au Canada) are in Montreal. Its Director is Father André Gagnon, S.J.; the website is http://www.opmcanada.ca/