Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2019
Location: Sacred Heart House, 58 High Park Blvd Toronto

Toronto News:
• The community had a community retreat with the parish on Saturday, March 30
• The Lay Dehonian group continues to meet. Another meeting was being held on April 22.
• Antonio got his drivers licence. The car which Wills Raposo used at the parish will be transfered to St. Thomas More.
• Joseph Do Ngoy Luan will be arriving soon from Vietnam. Starting in September, he will be studying second year theology at St. Augustine Seminary. He will require a formation director since he is still in temporary vows. Council decided to write a letter to the community, indicating that Yuliwan Maslim will be the director of formation.
• Br. John Hung Dinh will make his retreat in Toronto under Fr. Jim Casper and will return to Vietnam on June 17, 2019. He will try to return via the US so that he can visit the community there. For this he requires a visa. If he cannot receive one, he will return directly to Vietnam from Toronto..

Ottawa news:
• There were supposed to be three Vietnamese ESL students joining the Ottawa community this summer. They were to arrive on May 28 and remain until August 5. Instead only one received an entry visa. He is Bui Van Tri, who arrived at the Ottawa Airport on Saturday June 1. He is pictured here with Paul Tennyson and John van den Hengel. Peter Sanders made the arrangements with the Ottawa Separate school board for the delivery of the ESLcourse. The Ottawa Separate School Board has agreed to provide the course without cost, in recognition of Fr. Peter’s continued contribution as Chaplain of the Board. Fr. Pauline will join Tri for part of the summer.
• House repairs : a leaky roof and steps at the side of the house require attention.
Montreal news
• Claude will be going to Vietnam on May 1 at the invitation of Fr. Francis Vu, replacing Gustave Lulendo. He will be there for 10 days.
• The future use of Maison Dehon was discussed at a community meeting. The house has been empty now for a number of years and the community was asked to make recommendations to Council. As can be imagined, itw as not an easy discussion because Maison Dehon is the first house of the Region (1934). Some suggestions were made, but there was no clear recommendation. In order to arrive at a recommendation, it was suggested to have the property outline of the original Maison Dehon be determined and to see whether the space is saleable. Since the other four properties adjacent to the community house which are rented out, do not contribute enough to cover the budgetary expenditures of the Montréal community, it was suggested that a study be made which would allow for an increase of the rents or to determine whether the sale of the properties would allow to set up a fund that could support the community. Council decided to ask the community to come up with a position by September, 2019.
• The community is urged to make a financial plan in order to determine how to deal with the community’s monthly debt.

Feast of the Sacred Heart : The Feast of the Sacred Heart will be celebrated on Wednesday and Thursday, 26-27 June, 2019. It will be celebrated in the Ottawa community house, as has become customary. The celebration will begin with a period of adoration on Wednesday at 4 p.m., planned by the Toronto Community. The Montréal community will be in charge of the Eucharist on Thursday at 10 :00 a.m. It was suggested that in order to make the eucharist more celebratory, someone of the Ottawa Sunday community has been asked to play the organ. Richard Woodbury will take care of the music. Those members who wish to concelebrate are asked bring an alb and a stole. . Regional Assembly : The Regional Assembly will be held from August 12 – 15 at Providence Spirituality Centre in Kingston.
• Coordinator and contact: Jim Casper
• August 12 : 7 :00 check-in and social
• August 13 : Morning prayer, Morning Eucharist
• Topic of the assembly :, Ecology and our ecological footprint . The speaker at the assembly will be André Beauchamp.
• August 14 :
o A Eucharist remembering the Region’s jubilarians will be celebrated in the afternoon, The JUbilarians this year are Herman Falke : 70 years of religious life and 65 years of ordination; Gregory Murray, 15 years of Ordination and Willyans Prado Rapozo : 10 years of ordination)
o reports of communities
o Fr. Stephen Huffstetter will be asked to introduce the topic of the current General Administration and introduce a discussion that leads to a plan for us.
• August 15 :
o Finances : the financial reports have already been discussed in the communities. It is suggested that the assembly discuss some of the financial issues of the Region.
o The Regional committees will be asked to present their work and future plans.
o Eucharist for the feast of the Assumption will be prepared and presided by Martin AnthonyKadamattu and Paulin Makiala

NORAM meeting
We received the email of Mary Gorski about the NORAM meeting to be held during the US Assembly. The meeting will take place during a supper on Wednesday evening, June 12. A possible topic to be brought forward briefly will be the new vade mecum type edition of the Constitutions prepared by John van den Hengel and Jim Schroeder. We also propose to speak briefly about the membership of the different committtees. The next NORAM meeting in the Fall of 2019 will be the responsibility of the Region.

Committee reports
• Theological commission : The North American Commission met on March 30 – 31 in Toronto. On the agenda was the ongoing research of the members on the topic of « pure love » . The commission also discussed the topic of the next theological seminar in Ngoya, Cameroon, in July 2020. At the meeting of the International Theological Commission in December in Rome, the Superior General had suggested that the topic for the next theological seminar would be on a current understanding of Sint Unum as a way of healing divisions in the various parts of the Congregation.
• Migration committee : a meeting of the committee took place in Montreal on April 13. Present were Peter McKenna, Claude Bedard, and Lilly Ooi. It was the first meeting of the new committee and so it was exploratory. Each member of the community was asked to initiate activities on immigration on the local level.
• Vocation committee : Yuliwan Maslim, Antonio Resende Pereira and Paulin Makiala met on April 24 in Toronto. A report of the committeeàs meetinghas already been published on the blog.
• Apostolate committee : the council asks for a report of the Apsotolate Committee at our next meeting on June 26.
• Communications committee; The committee has met briefly to outline the activities of the members. John van den Hengel has accepted to continue to take care of the Regional Blog. Maurice Légaré will continue to send out the necrology notices. No discussion has taken place yet about the renewal of the website.

Correspondence
a. Luca Zottoli, the General Treasurer, wrote that he will visit Canada in September together with Mr. Aldo Ivaldi. They will arrive in Montréal and from there travel to Ottawa and Toronto. Council meeting with them will be in Montreal together with the Finance committee. Also Michel Lefebvre will be invited to attend. It is proposed that all the financial issues will be tackled at this meeting. The rest of the trip will consist of visiting the communities and get a taste of Canada. Each community is asked to introduce them to the history of the country and localities. Fr. Luca has let it be known that Niagara Falls is a must on his itinerary.
b. Steven Huffstetter will visit the Region during August. He will arrive on August 2 and he indicated a desire to visit the different communities. He will attend the first three days of the assembly. He will leave on Wednesday evening August 14.
c. Letter from Fr. Titus Nardi. The request to have John van den Hengel come to Indonesia for the annual retreat of the Indonesian Province. The retreat will consist of two sessions. October 14 – 18 / October 24 -28.
d. We received a letter from Vien Nguyen to acknowledge the participation of the Region in the USA Assembly in June. The topic of the assembly will be interculturality.

Finances:  The SCJ Canada Foundation – Pretres du Sacre-Cœur
Paul Tennyson has prepared the 2017 and the 2018 financial statements for Rome. He gave a report on the state of the finances of the Region. Since the General Treasurer will be coming in September, the Region has decided to hold a full financial meeting in September. The meeting will deal with a number of issues that affect our relationship to the financial situation of the Region and of rhe Congregation.

It was decided that the Region respond to the powerful storm that hit Mozambique on March 19 by sending 10,000 Euro from our Dutch account to Rome. The storm devastated the city of Beira, where Bishop Claudio Della Zuanna scj has his see.

Pointe-au – Chêne
Council received a letter from the Conseil d’administration of the Seminaire du Sacre Cœur in Pointe-au Chene. The letter outlined the financial deficit that the school is in because of a declining number of students in the last five years. The letter was addressed to the Regional Council and to the Fondation of the Séminarire. The school has a foundation that is intended to support the school in special projects. The Fondation is led by a Board of directors of which Richard Woodbury and Maurice Légaré are members. The Conseil d’administration of the Séminaire is asking for $ 2 million over the next five years to cover the expenditures of the renovations and to cover the deficit. The Region has already provided the Séminaire the equivalent of $ 400 000. The Conseil d’Administration is asking for additional support to help it get through the next five years. Richard will arrange a meeting between the Fondation and the Council. John van den Hengel will represent the Council at a future meeting.

Local superiors:  The terms of office of all the local superiors of the Region will be completed in August. Gustave will send a letter to the communities to initiate the process of nomination of the local superiors.

Next meeting. The next meeting of Council will be held on Wednesday, June 26 in Ottawa prior to the celebration of the feast of the Sacred Heart.