Our Greatest Generation

Fr. Jerome Ziliak SVD

We assist the poor and oppressed in such a way that gradually they are able to arrive at better living conditions by means of their own resources and initiative  (Constitutions, 112).

 

In 1958, Father Jerome Ziliak SVD, who had been a missionary in India for ten years, met with his bishop to discuss a new assignment. The bishop told him that, if possible, he wanted Fr. Jerome to introduce a modern method of agriculture adapted to the local conditions. The bishop said he could not help with any funds for the project, but he promised to give Fr. Jerome all the moral support that he could possibly provide. 

 

Fr. Jerome transformed a rural village in India by using innovative agricultural practices. He tells the story himself through excerpts from his 1987 article in Divine Word Missionaries Magazine.  [Ed.]

 

My new home was Karpur, an insignificant village in the middle of nowhere, with a population of 320 people, most of them from the untouchable caste.

 

It was evident to me that education was the first problem we needed to tackle. . . . I employed three qualified teachers from the local area so that we had a complete primary school of five grades. . . . Every year our students had the highest average of students passing the district school board examination. Encouraged by this, the parishioners and I put up a middle school for grades six through eight. . . . Instead of walking six miles each day, our children now have a school in their own village. With bad country roads and monsoon rains so heavy and constant, there is little possibility of bus transportation to a big central school. Instead, we brought the school to the children.   <TO READ MORE... CLICK HERE>

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Archbishop Leo Arkfeld, S.V.D. Remembered @ Creighton University

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