Priest Ordained at Age 70

[Luigi]

At the Trappist monastery of Shuili in Taiwan, on November 12; he had entered the monastery when he was about 65. 

http://www.ocso.org/2016/11/12/shuili/ 

 

 

That would qualify as a late vocation, wouldn't it? 

 

[RafaelCordero]

While this is indeed remarkable and noteworthy and a cause for celebration, Br. Pius had been a Benedictine monk for many years prior to joining the Trappists. From the Fall 2015 newsletter of St Procopius Abbey, in Lisle, Illinois:

We “lost” a monk in early September. Since 1936, our monastery had sponsored a “Benedictine Chinese Mission.” We had a house on the mainland, but the monks were first interned by the Japanese during the war, and then were uprooted again in  1948, as the Communist armies overran most of the country. Some  of our missionaries remained in the Far East for a while, to see what might develop, and in 1965 we decided to set up a house on Taiwan. The one native vocation who came and persevered in the following decades was Br. Pius Chen, who proved a hard worker. He visited us in Lisle several times in the following decades, making a positive impression notwithstanding an understandably imperfect command of English. When our Fr. Alban died in 2009, we shut down the priory in Taiwan, putting into effect a plan worked out previously to turn over the land to the Sisters of Our Lady of China, who had already built what might be the finest hospital on the island. We could accept our failure to establish a Benedictine abbey much easier, knowing that the good work of the Sisters would be assisted by the use of our property. Our plan had included bringing Br. Pius to the States. However, we did not account for the finer points of American immigration law! In trying to obtain a permanent residence visa, we ran into an insuperable barrier in the shape of incomprehension as to how Br. Pius could be considered other than indigent, since he had earned no income for decades. “But he was a monk, living in a monastery with a vow of poverty!” So we tried to explain, but all that came across was “poverty,” another way of saying indigent. So Br. Pius decided to seek to transfer his stability to a Trappist house in Taiwan, where he would also be able to pray and work in his native tongue. That process was completed this September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of Mary. Quite possibly in God’s Providence the best solution, no matter what our frustration with bureaucracy. We certainly wish Br. Pius a full measure of God’s grace in his new community   (Page 12 here;  http://procopius.webs.com/The Clerestory Fall 2015.pdf)

[Luigi]

Very good research, and a wonderful story, to boot!