HONG KONG: 27 June 2012 --
In a letter dated 25 June, Fr Simon Lam, current Provincial of
China
Province, has announced to his confreres that Fr Lanfranco
Fedrigotti
will be the new Provincial, due to be installed as such on
Saturday 11
August this year at the Salesian House of Studies where he is
currently
Rector.
Fr Fedrigotti will be well-known to
other
Salesians within the Region. He has been a frequent attender
at
meetings of the Region, over the years.
Fr Lanfranco's appointment might, in the
language
the racing fraternity, be called the Fedrigotti Superfecta or
Pick
4! Albino, Bortolo, Giovanni and now Lanfranco - four
priests,
all SDB, all from Tiarno di Sotto, all having been appointed
provincial
at some stage of their life. Perhaps a little historical data
on these
can help put the most recent appointment into that kind of
perspective,
but not before mentioning that there is also a fifth
Fedrigotti,
another Albino, a Salesian Brother, long-serving member of the
community at Colle Don Bosco. Lanfranco and Albino (currently
at Colle)
are the two surviving members of the group.
We need to go back to 1899, when Bortolo
was born at
Tiarno di Sotto. After joining the Salesians when he was 20,
he then
did most of his studies in the USA and was ordained in
1925. In
the early 1950s he came to Australia and became the first
provincial of
that province in 1958, until he died in 1964.
Fr Albino followed much the same road as
his
brother, joining the Salesians with him, also going to the US
and
became provincial of the Western Province there in 1943, and a
few
years later of the Antilles Province, after which he was
elected as a
General Councillor and became Vicar of the Rector Major for
twenty
years. After that he stayed on in Turin and eventually Colle
Don Bosco
until his death in the mid 1980s.
Giovanni on the other hand remained in
Italy, taking
his first vows at Albarè (part of the then Italy-West
Venice or IVO
province). He became provincial of that Province in 1984 and
in 1990
was elected as a General Councillor. He died in 2004.
And Lanfranco? He too started out at
Albarè where he
made his first vows in 1966 but by 1969 we already find him in
Cheung
Chau. Other than a brief reappearance at Albaré for
final vows, he
continued with his studies in Hong Kong and has been in China
province
ever since but for a brief sojourn at the UPS. He has been on
the
provincial council in recent years and is delegate for
formation
(initial and ongoing) and for studies.
