SW News: Ethiopian priest Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie has been re-elected as the superior general of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus congregation. The election was held during the XIX General Chapter of the order in Rome.

It was on Saturday, June 25, that the 52-year-old priest was re-elected to lead the international congregation which was founded in 1867 by St Daniel Comboni. Born in Harar, Ethiopia, on September 22, 1969, Fr Gebresilasie took his final vows in the congregation on November 1, 1994. The following year, on August 26 he was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Addis Ababa.

At the conclusion of his Theology higher studies in Rome, Fr Gebresilasie went to Egypt for a one-year course in Arabic. After his stint in Egypt, he was deputed to serve in Sudan where he undertook missionary activities from 1997 to 2000. From 2000 to 2001 he studied at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies from where he bagged a licentiate.

Fr Gebresilasie then returned to Ethiopia to undertake pastoral activities. After his brief stint at the Salesianum in Rome, he was made to undertake the role of vocation promoter and the priest in charge of formation from 2003 to 2004. The following year, he was elected provincial superior of the Comboni Missionaries in his home country and he remained in that position until 2009. During that tenure, he also served as president of the Association of Major Superiors of Ethiopia.

It was during the XVII General Chapter of the congregation in 2009 that he was elected as general councilor in charge of basic formation and the circumscriptions of Anglophone Africa and Mozambique. In 2015, he was elected the superior general of the congregation.

Comboni Missionaries are an international Catholic religious congregation dedicated to serving the poor and the abandoned people around the world. For 150 years, missionaries of the congregation have been serving communities in far-flung corners of the globe, bringing the Good News and striving to promote human dignity. The Comboni family, which includes nuns, consists of 3,500 missionaries serving in 41 countries.