Hello, I am Gaetan Pereira who joined the Madurai Jesuit Province in South India in 1969.

I was ordained a priest at Loyola College, Madras, South India in 1982. With the late General Father Pedro Arrupe SJ’s invitation for the “option for the poor”, I did work in remote educational institutions of the province, especially in St. John de Britto School and Shrine, Oriyur, South India for quite some time. It’s the place where John was martyred.

With family members settling in Australia in the early 80s, it was in the summer of 1994 I contemplated why not serve in the great southern land girt by sea?

“Come and see”, was the generous response of Father Bill Uren SJ the then Provincial. I came, I saw, I was conquered. After a long stint of parish ministry in Hawthorn Catholic Parish, Melbourne, I agreed to travel across the Nullarbor to the land of the Wild Flower in Western Australia. There I spent six enjoyable years ministering as Chaplain in John XXIII College, Mount Claremont, Perth, and Assistant Priest at Holy Rosary Parish in the Nedlands. Last year I was invited by Father Steve Curtin SJ, our present Provincial, to minister to the Richmond Parish and so here I am.

I enjoy bushwalking, cooking and gardening. If we want our community to stay healthy amidst the complexities and paradoxes in the church, we need to stay healthy with constant self appraisal. Thank you for the warm welcome.