Detroit — The North American-based PIME Missionaries elected a new leadership team during an April 21-23 assembly at their U.S. headquarters in Detroit.
Fr. George Palliparambil, PIME, was elected regional superior of the foreign missions society, while Fr. Giancarlo Ghezzi, PIME, was elected vice regional, and Fr. Dino Vanin, PIME, as councilor. Each will serve a four-year term.
PIME, which stands for “Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions” in Latin, is an international society of apostolic life with some 500 priests and brothers serving as missionaries in 17 countries around the world. Initially established in 1850 in Milan, it became known as PIME in 1926 under Pope Pius XI, and has maintained its North American headquarters in Detroit since 1947. Its global headquarters are in Rome.
Fr. Palliparambil, a native of Kerala, India, who was ordained to the priesthood in 2003, has served as director of PIME’s mission center in Detroit since 2013, when he came to the United States after serving 13 years in the missions in Cameroon, Africa.
Fr. Palliparambil succeeds Fr. Ken Mazur, PIME, a Detroit native who has served as regional superior since 2005.
Fr. Palliparambil praised the work of his predecessor in bolstering Hispanic ministry in several local dioceses and the renovation of PIME’s headquarters on Quincy Street in northwest Detroit.
“After so many challenges in leading the U.S. region, his readiness to prepare himself in view of his future ministry and entrusting everything in God’s hands is very much worthy of praise,” Fr. Palliparambil said.
As regional superior, Fr. Palliparambil said he’ll focus on promoting the missionary charism of the institute and encouraging mission awareness and activity across the United States.
“It will also be my priority to keep (the public) in touch with all the PIME missionaries who are in the missions, and to keep our supporters and my confreres in my daily prayers,” he said.
“My personal conviction and my motto is to ‘wash the feet of one another,’” Fr. Palliparambil continued. “My ideal and my desire is ‘to be given up for you.’ Every Eucharist that I celebrate and every time I say those consecratory prayers, I try to convince myself that my missionary vocation is ‘to be given up’ for others.
“Every priest, every missionary, every lay person in the family, every Christian needs ‘to be given up’ for the other,” he said. “This is, first of all, the Christian vocation: ‘love one another as I have loved you’ which is the same as ‘the body given up for you.’ Every time we participate in the Eucharistic celebration, we need to become more and more aware of our call – what God expects from each one of us as His children.”
Fr. Ghezzi currently serves as administrator of All Saints Parish in southwest Detroit, and will continue in that role. Fr. Vanin has been regional treasurer for PIME since 2003 and often assists at San Francesco Parish, an Italian parish in Clinton Township.
In addition, five other PIME priests (including Fr. Mazur) live and serve in different capacities within the Archdiocese of Detroit.
