In this section are several sscc brothers and sisters that have been particularly significant. On the one hand, thank God, it is easy to find sscc brothers and sisters who have left their mark on the lives of many people. On the other hand, how difficult it is to select only a few. Here are present some who have had greater impact in the Congregation or public importance in social and ecclesial life.
Surely many other names of brothers and sisters would be mentioned if we ask any person connected with the Congregation for sscc that have been for them "witnesses of love."
To learn more about sscc personages, click here to go to the SSCC Library
GABRIELLE DE LA BARRE, ss.cc. (1771-1829)
She was born to a noble family in Poitiers, France and was imprisoned during the French Revolution. She was an intimate friend of the Good Mother, confidante of the Good Father and superior of the Grande Maison in Poitiers from 1802 until her death. Her writings, organized at the request of the Founder, are a precious source of information on our foundress and the first period of the history of the Congregation.
CLEONISSE CORMIER, ss.cc. (1803-1866)
She was born in La Suze in the neighborhood of Man, France. She became a member of the Congregation in 1821 upon completion of her novitiate in Picpus. During her years in France she had regular contact with the founders and M. Francoise de Viart, and, in her memoirs, she was able to write many small details of the first period of the history of the Congregation. In 1838 she was elected to go with a group of Sisters to Latin America. There she established houses in Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile and in Lima, Peru. She returned to France in 1855.
HERMASIE PAGET, ss.cc. (1828-1890)
She was born in Sombacour, France, in a very religious family: a brother was a priest and an elder sister was an ss.cc. religious. Because she was not physically strong, the doctors prescribed a change of climate. For this reason, as a newly professed, she was destined to the new foundation of Lima. She was named superior of Lima when the foundress, Cleonisse Cormier, left. She founded a second house in Peru and in 1881 the Superior General confided to her the task of canonical visitor to all the houses of the Sisters in Latin America. In 1883 she founded a community in La Paz, Bolivia. She was concerned with associating the laity to the aims and works of the Congregation. It is generally believed that M. Hermasie had a great influence on the efforts of a French Naval Officer in saving the city of Lima during the war between Chile and Peru (1881).
MARIA JOSEFINA LAMARCA, ss.cc. (1849-1930)
She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Shortly thereafter her family moved to Valparaiso, Chile where she was educated in Sacred Hearts School. Although she expressed a desire to become a religious, she was counseled to marry. After a brief marriage, she was widowed. In 1879 she entered the novitiate of Valparaiso. She made her first profession in January 1889. At that time the Superior General, Angele Chauvain, planned to found a house in Spain and chose Maria Josefina for that purpose. She went in the same year with a group of Sisters to Torrelavega, Cantabria where she founded the first house of the congregation in Spain. She also assisted the brothers in the foundation of the scholasticate in El Escorial and in the construction of the church of Christ the King in Madrid. She is known as the “Mother of the Congregation in Spain”. Also financially, she helped the brothers in France, with a gift to the Superior General, Father Flavien Prat, thanks to which he was able to acquire the property of Montgeron, to make it a novitiate.
MATEO CRAWLEY-BOEVEY, ss.cc. (1875-1960)
Although he was born in Arequipa, Peru, he lived most of his life in Chile and Canada. He was the founder of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart and of Night Adoration in the Home. He was an indefatigable apostle of this mission through his preaching throughout the world and in his writings: Jesus, King of Love and Holy Hours.
HECTOR DE CARDENAS, ss.cc. (1926-1980)
He was born in Miraflores, Peru. He was professor and spiritual director of various graduating classes of the College of the Sacred Hearts of Recoleta in the French Plaza in Lima. In 1960 he underwent surgery for the first time for a cancerous tumor of the tongue. Animator of Christian communities of youth, he encouraged the youth to live from their commitment to the faith and in a spirit of abandonment. In the book, "Desde la Vida" (From Life), he shared his experience of suffering with his illness: “Nobody can separate me from the love of Christ and from the Christ that you are. This is the unique value.”
LUIS DALLE, ss.cc. (1922-1982)
He was French born but Indian in heart. He was number 13 in a rural and humble family of 15 children. When he was little, he was a shepherd. Later, for ten months, he experienced in his own flesh the atrocities of the Nazi extermination camps in Bachenwal.
In 1948 he arrived in Peru. He was founder and first executive director of the Institute of Andean Pastoral, and Apostolic Administrator of the Prelature of Ayaviri. He was a free man, strong as a diamond and tender as a mother. “An Indian that smells a like a llama,” he said of himself. His love for the indigenous led him to denounce, each time more strongly, all kinds of injustices against his people. “I have suffered so much that I cannot see others suffer.” He died as an Indian in a bus accident.
ESTEBAN GUMUCIO, ss.cc. (1914-2001)
Esteban was born in Santiago, Chile, on September 3, 1914. He studied at the Colegio de los Sagrados Corazones in Santiago (Alameda). When he was 18 he entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1938 in Valparaiso.
Having finished formation, the young priest was sent to teach in SSCC schools. At the age of 33, he was appointed Provincial Superior. He held that position until September 1953. During his time as Provincial he was the first president of FIDE, a federation that brought together the Catholic schools of Chile.
After finishing his term as Provincial he was named Novice Master, during several periods. At the beginning of 1964 Esteban was assigned to Santiago along with some young priests to found a new parish in a growing working class section in south Santiago. He could be considered the founder of the parish of Saint Peter and Saint Paul being its first pastor from 1965 to 1971. From 1986 to 1989 he also worked in the Parish of San Jose in La Union.
During those years he also had an extensive preaching ministry, giving retreats to priests, religious and laity throughout Chile and in other countries of Latin America. For many years he worked with great love and dedication in the Marriage Encounter. His involvement with the movement was always active and enthusiastic. In his later years he gave special attention to people in the “third age” both through his writings and by preaching days of recollection and retreats.
In May of 2000 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The cancer slowly riddled his body, while at the same time it made the quality of his interior life so evident. On the feast of the Good Shepherd, Sunday May 6, 2001 at 6:30 p.m. Esteban died.
For more than fifty years Father Esteban was a key person in the life of the Chilean province. He was truly a gift from God, who came to be respected and loved by all, not because of the posts he held but because of the very human and religious person that he was. To a great extent, he modeled much of what we are today as a religious community in Chile. More than that, he has come to be a significant figure for the whole Catholic Church in Chile. Laity, religious, priests and bishops see in Esteban a faithful witness of Jesus and a brother who is somehow close to everyone. His writings, produced over the course of his life, so wonderfully combining faith and life, will remain the most living witness of his life in our midst.
ROLF REICHENBACH, ss.cc. (1931-2004)
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Rolf Friedrich Joseph Reichenbach was born in 1931 in Cologne, on the Rhine. He was the youngest of three son of a wealthy family. The father was Jewish and had a hat factory and several hat-shops in Cologne, Bonn and Düsseldorf. His mother, with a background as a musician, was the strong soul of the family.
Rolf - aka Marcus - made his profession in 1953 in Ginneken. He was ordained a priest in 1958 in Valkenburg, and was sent one year later to Indonesia, that had belonged the to Dutch province since 1924.
In 1977 he was appointed vicar general of the Diocese of Pangkalpinang, and two years later he became the successor of Bishop, as Apostolic Administrator.
Rolf died in Breda (Holland), peaceful and happy, according to eyewitnesses, on September 11, 2004, at the age of 72. He was a sober and rational person who could communicate the spiritual and mystical faith, possesed a genuine Picpucienne love the "family", was a great admirer of Damien, and had a rare ability for inculturation and listening.