4740_Former World Delegate of the Salesian Cooperators passed away

Fr. Julio Olarte went in the Salesian garden

May 29, 2018

By ANS

Bogotá, Colombia, 26 May 2018 -- The "San Pietro Claver" Province of Colombia-Bogotá, with deep sorrow, reports the death of Fr. Julio Humberto Olarte Franco, SDB, who passed away on May 26, 2018, in the city of Bogotá due to a heart attack.

Fr Olarte was born on 26 July, 1947, in the Cundinamarca, a central region of the country, which surrounds the capital, Bogotá. He made his first religious profession in the Salesian Congregation on January 29, 1965. He was ordained priest on August 15, 1974.

As Salesian scholar Fr. Julio was famous for his Doctoral thesis on Blessed Luis Variara, the first founder of one Salesian Family Sister Congregation - Daughters of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, born in Colombia in the Salesian leprosary of Agua de Dios.

He worked in various Salesian houses, also serving at the Generalate of the Congregation, in Rome, from 2000 to 2008. During these years he was part of the Salesian Family team directly dependent on the Vicar of the Rector Major. He was the Central Assistant for Volunteers of Don Bosco (VDB) and World Delegate for Salesian Cooperators.

Once work for the Salesian Family at the Generalate was completed, he continued to serve the Congregation at the Salesian Center for Ongoing Formation of America, based in Quito, Ecuador.

He had recently taken on the role of Rector and Parish priest of the community "El Niño Jesús of 20 de Julio" of Bogotá, as well as holding the role of Provincial Vicar. In his infinite goodness God called him to be part of the Salesian Paradise.

For the Salesian Cooperators of the EAO Region he is remembered for his animation visit to many provinces and his animating presence in the 2001 EAO Regional Congress in Cebu,Philippines and 2004 Regional Congress in Seoul, Korea.