Centro Universitario Claretiano (Brazil) welcomes Bro. Sid

Our brother writes from Brazil:

….The CMFs in Brazil are really doing “big time.” Well, a history of more than a hundred years (the first CMF missionaries came in 1895), and more than a 100 living members really make a big difference. Still, they are still very few for the different ministries they have since they are engaged in family and youth ministry, health care, radio, TV, publishing and printing, internet, schools, both face-to-face and online distance education, popular missions, parishes and others.

The provincial superior said that a number of bishops in South America had asked him for CMF missionaries to work in their dioceses, as they had come to know about the many Claretian ministries, specially the distance education. But in reality, there is only 1 or 2, or not even one Claretian directly working in these ministries. It is the lay people who are actively involved in most of these.

So I came to Brazil for an exposure to and immersion in the life and ministry of our Claretian confreres here, especially in the online distance education they are doing in the Centro Universitario Claretiano - www.claretiano.edu.br - in Batatais, a city more than 300 kms away from São Paulo. Their program began with only 200 students, but after three terms, the number increased to 12,000 enrollees. Now, the Claretians in Argentina, Chile and Colombia have translated the interface of their virtual learning management system into Spanish to offer online courses suited to the needs of the people in their respective areas.

We hope to make this Claretian enterprise accessible to the English-speakers, especially in Asia, and also eventually to make it available in Chinese.

Aerial view of Centro Universitario Claretiano