A couple of days later, he explained his choice of his Papal name, noting that Pope Leo XIII “addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution” with his May 1891 Encyclical Letter on capital and labor, Rerum Novarum.
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labor,” Pope Leo XIV said on May 10.
In his Pentecost 2025 message, the Superior General of the Spiritans also reflects on their two-week-long meeting of the leaders of the 322-year-old Congregation dubbed the “Enlarged General Council” (EGC).
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome
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Scheduled to begin on June 22, the meeting is to take at Chevilly-Larue near Paris in France, “the place of our origins, the source of our charism and the spirituality of our founders,” he says, referring to Claude François Poullart des Places and François Marie Paul Libermann.
Fr. Alain Mayama, Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans/Holy Ghost Fathers). Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
Fr. Mayama, the first African Spiritan Superior General, says that the choice of France as the venue of the meeting aligns with the “Animation Plan on Spiritan Spirituality”, which is part of the Congregation’s “animation plan” that was launched on 2 October 2024, the anniversary of Claude Poullart des Places.
France as the venue of the gathering of Spiritan leaders “also offers delegates from all corners of the Spiritan world the opportunity to visit places of significance in the history of the Congregation,” he says in his two-page message of Pentecost 2025.
Fr. Mayama adds, “The dynamism of such a meeting stems above all from prayer and openness to the action of the Holy Spirit, who is an essential support in this area. It is when we pray that the Holy Spirit speaks to us, beyond anything we could imagine on our own, and thus we avoid the risk of doing our own will.”
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
“The entire Congregation is invited to pray to the Holy Spirit, to whom we have been consecrated since the beginning of our history, that He may accompany and enlighten the delegates at this meeting,” the native of Congo-Brazzaville to the over 2,700 Spiritans present in some 60 countries spread across all continents and their Lay Associates.
Poullart des Places, a native of France who gave up the practice of law to study for the Priesthood founded a community for youthful men with the wish to become Priests in 1703. He dedicated the community to the Holy Spirit, calling it the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.
Some 150 years later, Libermann, a converted Jew, established another religious family also in France, bearing the name, the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, thus the official name, the “Congregation of the Holy Spirit under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary”.
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
Through the years, the Congregation has had 25 Superiors General, including Fr. Mayama, the only African native on the list.
In his Pentecost 2025 message, Fr. Mayama, referring to the Spiritan Rule of Life (SRL), reminds his confreres that “as members of the Congregation, we live our apostolic and missionary commitment in docility to the Holy Spirit, taking Mary as our model (SRL 5).”
“It is the Holy Spirit who “helps discern the will of the Father and gives us willing obedience so that we may conform ourselves to that will, even if it takes us where we ‘would rather not go (Jn 21:18),” he adds, referring to SRL 76.
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
Fr. Mayama goes on to clarify that the June 22 – July 5 EGC is “consultative” and that “as such, it has no deliberative power. It is a time to evaluate the implementation of the decisions of the last General Chapter,” which took place in October 2021 at Bagamoyo, then in Tanzania’s Catholic Diocese of Morogoro, now in Bagamoyo Diocese, whose establishment was made public on March 7.
“During this meeting, the General Council has the opportunity to raise any questions or doubts it may have and seek advice on interpretations and policies,” he says.
The Spiritan Superior General adds, “Like a stay in a temporary lodging, the Enlarged General Council is a place to pause on the pilgrimage that began in 2021. It offers us time to stop, pray, reflect, and reorient ourselves. It is a time and place to look back on the road traveled, share stories of the journey, and adjust our maps and plans for the next stage of the journey.”
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
On May 15, the Rome-based Spiritan General Council (GC) realized a virtual meeting as “a preliminary step towards” the EGC. The meeting brought together some 102 EGC delegates and functionaries, whom the Spiritan Superior General asked to view the EGC as part of “animation plan on Spiritan spirituality”.
Fr. Jude Nnorom, a Spiritan General Assistant, asked EGC delegates and functionaries explained the nature of the two-week-long meeting that he described as “an introspection” on the implementation of the October 2021 Spiritan General Chapter.
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome
The Spiritan delegates to gather at Chevilly-Larue in France are to reflect on “leadership and governance”, which Fr. Mayama identifies in his Pentecost 2025 message as “the greatest challenge facing the Congregation today, since from this, flows so many other challenges, including discernment of missionary choices, formation, recruitment, choice of formators, finances, etc.”
The delegates are also to deliberate “on the organizational structure of the Congregation, which, as we know, must be at the service of the mission and life of the Congregation,” the Spiritan Superior General says.
Referring to the ongoing Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, which the late Pope Francis officially launched on Christmas Eve 2024 under the theme “Pilgrims of Hope” months after he had delivered the Bull of Indiction of the planned Jubilee, “Spes non confundit” (Hope does not disappoint), Fr. Mayama highlights the role of the Holy Spirit as important.
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
“Pilgrimages have always been journeys both internal and external, requiring not only special attention to the logistics of the journey, but also to what is happening in the heart of the pilgrim along the way. It is an inner quest that requires letting go, getting rid of the superfluous, allowing oneself to be led by the Holy Spirit, opening oneself to newness, and walking toward hope in this jubilee year,” he says.
For him, “Only by welcoming the Holy Spirit will we be able to break out of traditional patterns, doubt, and fear of the future.”
“The Spirit will help us to enter into hope, as a desire, an expectation of the best, and thus to formulate concrete and practical proposals in the face of the challenges of the moment,” the Spiritan Superior General says ahead of the Congregations two-week-long EGC.
He invites his confreres to “implore” the Holy Spirit in the footsteps of their first founder.
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
“Let us implore the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our Enlarged General Council, as Poullart des Places and his first companions did on the evening of Pentecost 1703, so that it may continue to shape us, to give us the courage to come out of ourselves and open ourselves to the freedom of the Holy Spirit,” he says in his Pentecost 2025 message.
Fr. Mayama adds, “We also confidently invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary, that she may obtain a renewed outpouring of the Spirit upon our Congregation.”
In his message of Pentecost 2024, the Spiritan Superior General acknowledged with appreciation the pioneer Spiritans in various mission territories across the globe, saying, “Today, what they planted has sprouted and grown, bearing abundant fruit.”
“This is the Congregation’s present time, the time of harvest,” he said, and explained, “The service of the Lord and of the peoples of various continents, lovingly evangelized by the Spiritan elders, has borne fruit. It’s harvest time.
ACI Africa’s Editor-in-Chief, Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla, is a Spiritan.
ACI Africa was founded in 2019. We provide free, up-to-the-minute news affecting the Catholic Church in Africa, giving particular emphasis to the words of the Holy Father and happenings of the Holy See, to any person with access to the internet. ACI Africa is proud to offer free access to its news items to Catholic dioceses, parishes, and websites, in order to increase awareness of the activities of the universal Church and to foster a sense of Catholic thought and culture in the life of every Catholic.
Fr. Alain Mayama, Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans/Holy Ghost Fathers). Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
Pope Leo XIV greets members of new Church movements, associations, and communities during Mass for Pentecost Sunday in St. Peter's Square on June 8, 2025.
Fr. Alain Mayama with Dieudonné Cardinal Nzapalainga. Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
Credit: Spiritan Generalate/Rome/Fr. Philip Ng'oja, CSSp.
