Profile - Fr. Louis (Joseph)
Mascarenhas OFM
Fr Louis (Joseph) Mascarenhas was born on November 17, 1933 in Catholic
Colony 1. He started school in St Lawrence’s Convent School in 1939, and
then moved to St Patrick’s High School in 1943, finishing High School in
1948.
Louis worked in Indian Life Assurance Company, Karachi for a few months
and then went to D. J. Sindh College where he completed his F. Sc. He
entered the Franciscan Order in Bangalore in 1949, and made his first
profession in Palmaner in 1950. After completion of the juniorate in
Palmaner in 1952 and philosophy in 1954, he returned to Karachi and
completed his theological training and was ordained in January 1958.
That same year he went to Rome for higher studies and did his doctorate
in theology in 1961.
Fr. Louis then spent a year in the Middle East learning Arabic, and
visiting the countries of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. He returned
to Karachi where he started teaching at the Christ the King Seminary in
1962. In 1969 he was called to Rome to work on a mission document for
the Assembly of Provincials in Medellin, Colombia. In 1972 he went for
psychiatric counseling to Kansas, USA.
In 1974 Fr. Louis started a new style formation house for Franciscan
students living in apartments where almost all the flats were occupied
by Muslims. The house was self-supporting. That same year he was invited
to become a member of the International Commission of the Order for
dialogue with Islam. In 1984 he was part of a Commission in Rome to draw
up the new Constitutions of the Order, which were passed in the Chapter
at Assisi in 1985.
He was the first Pakistani Provincial from 1985-1994. In 1993 he was a
guest professor at the Theologie interkulturel of Frankfurt University
and lectured for 3 months in German, and in 1994 he was guest professor
at the University of Tilburg, Holland.
Coming back to Pakistan in 1996 he pioneered the new mission station
among the tribal people in Khipro, living in a hut without electricity
and running water for three years, where he set up a good school for the
education of the poor.
In 2002 he was appointed by Rome as Visitator General for the
Vice-Province of Papua New Guinea, in 2006-2007 as Visitator General to
the Franciscan Province of the Philippines and in 2009-2010 as Visitator
General of the Franciscan Province of South Korea.
Fr. Louis Mascarenhas still teaches at the National Catholic Institute
of Theology and is bursar of the Franciscan Order in Pakistan. (March
20, 2013)
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