New Director of Augustinian Formation in North America

An Announcement from the Prior Provincial

Father Bob Guessetto, O.S.A., will serve as the Director of Augustinian Formation beginning on July 1, 2015

It is with great joy that I, on behalf of the Council of The Federation of North America (FANA), announce that the new Director of Professed Students will be Father Bob Guessetto, O.S.A. He will officially take office July 1, 2015.

Father Guessetto returns to the United States after spending the past 13 years in Rome where he was the Director of Professed Students at Colegio Santa Monica and currently is the Prior. Before his service in Rome, Father Guessetto was the Director of Professed Students in Washington, D.C., for five years.  Prior to that, he served in pastoral roles in Lawrence, Massachusetts and Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.

Father Guessetto comes to us with great experience and enthusiasm for this important ministry of formation with our professed students.  He will join Father Jim Thompson, O.S.A.; Father Jim Halstead, O.S.A.; and Brother Tom Taylor, O.S.A., on the Formation Team in Chicago.  I am grateful to them, as well as to Father Emmanuel Thliza, O.S.A., from Nigeria, who are currently part of the interim arrangement as we await Father Guessetto's arrival.

We are grateful to our Prior General, the Most Reverend Alejandro Moral Antón, O.S.A., for his acceptance of our request to allow Father Guessetto to leave his international ministry to the Order in Rome.

We are grateful to Father Bob Guessetto, O.S..A., for his willingness to return to the United States and to be of service to FANA in this role of formation.  We look forward to working with him.

Augustinian Celebration of Consecrated Life

Also, in our continued efforts to work together, we are pleased to announce that all formation students of FANA will have a gathering at Villanova on July 30-31, 2015.  On August 1, 2015, we will have a Celebration of Consecrated Life which will conclude with the First Profession of all of our Novices at a Mass at 4 p.m., in Villanova, Pennsylvania. We are also pleased to announce that we are moving forward with a strategic planning process together.

We hope that you see these things as a sign of our unity and our desire to work together more closely as a Federation.

Fraternally in Christ and St. Augustine,
Very  Rev. Bernard C. Scianna, OSA, Ph.D.
Prior of FANA; Prior Provincial of the Midwest Augustinians