St Zuze Vaz Home for retired priests of Mangalore diocese was blessed and inaugurated by Bishop Aloysius Paul D’Souza on Feb 27
at 10 am, with concelebrated Mass. The new Home is located on a plot, measuring 0.99 acres at St Antony’s Charity Institute, Jeppu.
St Antony’s complex already has a modern building designed to accommodate a dozen retired priests with a small chapel, dining room and visitors’ lobby.
But, the diocese wanted to have one central facility.
The old Mangalore diocese which included newly carved out Udupi diocese had a retirement home for clergy, Vianney Home, since 1884 at the Fr Muller Hospital complex at Kankanady.
Until 1956, Vianney Home was run as part of the hospital and Jesuit clergy managing the hospital also resided in this building.
In the 1980s the old residence was renovated and made suitable to host 16 retired/old priests.
Since then Fr Muller Institute has grown exponentially. The number of retired/old priests too exceeded the capacity of Vianney Home.
At the late Monsignor Fred V Pereira’s initiative, a modern building suitable for hosting 12 priests was established at St Antony’s complex.
For the last few years, the idea of having one centralized facility for retired priests got crystallized and, accordingly, Bishop Aloysius blessed the foundation for a new complex on January 1, 2015.
Spread over two floors, the new home has a total of 34 rooms on single-occupancy basis (407 sq. ft. each).
One floor accommodates the convent of care-taker nuns from the Missionary Sisters of Jesus congregation.
There is also a hall for celebratory functions.
There is provision for adding more rooms later.