After an experience in Cameroon, Sister Regina Da Costa Pedro, missionary of the Immaculate Conception, became the first national director of the Pontifical Missionary Works of her country
The first woman to hold the role of national director of the Pontifical Missionary Societies (PMS) of Brazil, Sister Regina da Costa Pedro is a dynamic missionary of the Brazilian Immaculate who returned to her country of origin, after a period of formation in Italy and an experience in Cameroon. She graduated in Theology and Psychology from the Gregorian University of Rome, she obtained a master’s degree in Dogmatic Theology from the same university and a diploma in Missionary Spirituality from the Pontifical Urbaniana University.
After having held various positions in her congregation, she was regional superior of the Missionaries of the Immaculate at the time of her appointment as director of the PMS. We met her on the occasion of the V National Missionary Congress which was held in November 2023 in Manaus, in the Amazon, where the topic of the commitment of local Churches to the mission was explored to nations.
Sister Regina, what are the origins of your faith?
«I was born in an area in the north of the city of São Paulo, the sixth of seven children of wonderful parents. In our neighborhood of Tucuruvi I attended the parish of Nossa Senhora da Luz, near home. It is in this community that my faith grew, above all due to the accompaniment, example and testimony of my mother and the uprightness of my father, even if he did not participate much in the life of the community. They were my pillars.”
How did you meet the Missionaries of the Immaculate and when did you decide to join them?
«I met them when I was 16. It was the missionary month when the parish invited Father Gaetano Maiello from PIME to talk to us about the mission to nations. From that moment my heart was on fire. The following year, however, a nun of the Immaculate Conception, Benedetta Cinelli, came and gave her testimony on the mission and this consolidated my vocation. She then invited me to join her community, having understood how important it was to me. She herself then accompanied us for two years.”
However, she spent her first years as a missionary in her country of origin…
«It all started in Assis, a town in the state of São Paulo, next to sugar cane cutters and in a very active ecclesial community (Ceb) in a neighborhood called Vila Prudenciana. After some time they sent me to the extreme north of Brazil, to the state of Amapá, in the Amazon. That was really my first missionary love. I remained for three years always close to the PIME fathers, and more directly with Father Daniele Curnis, who had recently arrived in Brazil (currently in Manaus in the Amazon – ndr)».
Three years of experience in Brazil. And then?
«Afterwards I had the joy of receiving the missionary mandate to go to Cameroon, where I worked for eight years, in two separate moments. Between the first and second periods I went to study in Italy, where I was also able to live many experiences of interculturality, of deepening my vocation and of contact with the sources and origins of our congregation. Then, after a second mandate in Cameroon, I was called back to Brazil, first as a trainer of postulants and then as coordinator of our Southern Brazil Province. The Missionaries of the Immaculate still have two provinces: one in the North and the other in the South. When I was to finish my second mandate I was appointed director of the PMS. It was November 10, 2022, but I took office at the end of March 2023.”
The national missionary program was presented at the Manaus Congress. What is it about?
«The program was born in August 2017, the result of the reflection of the members of the National Missionary Council (Comina), and was adopted by the Church during the Assembly of Bishops of May 2019. The objective is to ensure that the mission is in fact an integral part of the life of all Catholics and of the various ecclesial bodies. And it is precisely this program that has guided us over the last four years.”
Can we say that the latest missionary congress represents a turning point in the prophetic path of the Church in Brazil?
«In his speech to the Congress, the current president of the Commission for missionary action and inter-ecclesial cooperation, Bishop Maurício da Silva Jardim, said that the Congress held in Recife in 2017 was the beginning of a process irreversible in the mission of the Church”.
What were your expectations for the V National Missionary Congress?
«We wanted to spark an ecclesial reflection that deepens and energizes the four priorities of the missionary program of the Church in Brazil: formation, animation,to nations, social commitment and, above all, we would like to see the link between these priorities and missionary spirituality strengthened. It is precisely this spirituality that makes us walk.”
Can we say then that the Manaus event was a moment of great hope?
“No doubt! From there, we would first of all like to relaunch the national missionary program. Secondly, ensure that the presence of the PMS really penetrates the heart and pastoral practices of every local Church. Finally, we hope that this Congress offers concrete paths so that every local Church is open to the announcement starting from its territory to the ends of the world. We entrust this dream to the Holy Spirit and to Mary, missionary mother, for a missionary conversion of a pilgrim Church in Brazilian lands. And not only”.