Puerto Rico: Police investigate death of Polish missionary

Source: Fides

The Vincentian Congregation of the Mission of Puerto Rico and the Vincentian Family of Puerto Rico are mourning the death in hospital yesterday (18 August) of Polish missionary Fr Stanislaw Szczepanik, CM, in Ponce. According to preliminary information, Fr Stanislaw had an accident as he was cycling on his way to celebrate Mass two days earlier. He suffered a head injury. Police are investigating what happened.

Fr Szczepanik was a member of the Vincentian Congregation of the Mission. He was born on February 4, 1956 in Smarżowa in Brzostek, a town between Krakow and Tarnow in Southern Poland. He joined the Congregation in the Province of Poland in 1981, took his final vows on December 8, 1983, and was ordained a priest at the Vincentian Seminary Church at Stradom in Krakow by He made his vows on December 8, 1983, and was ordained a priest at the Vincentian Seminary Church at Stradom in Krakow by on May 25, 1985 by auxiliary Bishop Kazimierz Górny.

His first priestly assignment was a vicar in the countryside parish of Witoszyn in the diocese of Gorzaw-Zielona Gara in western Poland. A year later he was moved to another parish in Grodkaw, in the diocese of Opole in South-Western Poland.

In 1986 he went to work on the missions. A CM statement said: "Stanislaw Szczepanik, was a missionary in Haiti, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. He was a zealous priest, great promoter of the devotion to the Divine Mercy in the Dominican Republic. He was a person of profound interior life. In his life he left a trail of love for God and love for the poor. He was a tireless worker, always ready to live his priesthood for the sanctification of the faithful. A great confessor and a good spiritual guide. He was the director of the Daughters of Charity in Puerto Rico. He was a formator at the seminary and promoter of many vocations."

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