Fr Jorge Crisafulli - ANN Provincial for 2022-2028

Fr Jorge Crisafulli - ANN Provincial for 2022-2028

28 December 2021

(ANS - Rome) - This Christmas 2021, Saturday 25 December, at the end of the first part of the General Council winter plenary work session, the Rector Major, Fr Á.F. Artime, with the consent of his Council, appointed Fr Jorge Mario Crisafulli as Provincial Superior of the Africa Nigeria-Niger Province (ANN) for the 2022-2028 term.

Fr Jorge Mario Crisafulli was born on 19 March 1961 in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. He is the son of Salvatore Crisafulli and Gladia Gamberini. He entered the novitiate of San Miguel de La Plata, where he made his first religious vows on 31 June 1980, and then his perpetual vows 6 years later, on 31 June 1986, in Junín de los Andes. He was ordained a priest in Bahía Blanca on May 5, 1990. Until today, Fr Crisafulli belonged to the ABB Province of Argentina, and then to the AFW (Anglophone West Africa), of which he was the second Provincial, from 2010 to 2016. Now he becomes the first Provincial Superior of the young Nigeria-Niger Province, canonically erected on 3 March 2021, under the patronage of the Salesian brother, Blessed Artemide Zatti. The new ANN Province currently includes the territory that until now was that of the AFW/Nigeria Delegation, with 9 communities: Abuja, Akure, Ibadan, Ijebu-Ode, Kontagora - Koko, Ondo, Onitsha and the two communities of Lagos (St. Mary Help of Christians in Iju). The headquarters of the Province will be in Lagos - Iju.

After a year as vicar in the community of Villa Regina in southern Argentina, Fr Crisafulli worked for two years in Bahia Blanca, and in 1996 he arrived as a missionary in West Africa. He was in charge, then Rector of the community of Sunyani and, while he was provincial vicar, he was also in charge, then Rector of the provincial house of Ashaiman, also in Ghana. After his six years as AFW Provincial, he was Rector of the community of Freetown (Fambul), Sierra Leone, where at the time of his appointment he was serving his second term (2019-2022). Fr Crisafulli speaks Spanish, English, and Italian.