Brazil

Our Institute was founded in Brazil by a group of fathers who left the community of the Pallotines to dedicate themselves completely to the Schoenstatt work. This first group was established in the city of São Paulo and started to work in a parish that was offered to them by the Cardinal of the city. By that time, the neighborhood of Jaraguá was a small village in the outskirts of São Paulo.
Little by little, the Schoenstatt Fathers could found the Schoenstatt Movement on that place. They bought a land in the neighborhood, close to the parish, where they established a center of the Movement. A Schoenstatt shrine was built on that place – the first Sion Shrine of our Institute. The foundation stone of the Shrine was blessed on May 5, 1968 and the Shrine was blessed on May 31, 1969.

At the beginning, our community in Brazil was a single territorial unity with Portugal. In Gafanha da Nazaré, Portugal, the Schoenstatt Fathers could serve in a parish as well. Fathers from both countries worked together in the service to the Movement. At the same time, there were fathers from other countries in the community living in Brazil: Germany, afterwards also Chile and Poland. After having established themselves in São Paulo, they opened new house communities in Londrina and Santa Maria and until nowadays, our community lives and works in these three Brazilian cities. Many Schoenstatt Fathers serve the Movement also in other parts of the country. More recently, the northern and northeastern part of Brazil also became an area of apostolic work with the coming of fathers to the city of Recife.

On the seventies, our community found its ideal: Filii promisionis pro Sion Gentium. The heritage of Palloti was assumed by the community through the person of Fr. Maximo Trevisan, one of the Schoenstatt pioneers in Brazil.

He had a deep relationship with our Father and Founder and due to that, we can refer to him as an anticipant of our community in Brazil. The new generations of the Institute could complement the elaboration of the mission of our Institute in Brazil, deepening the relationship with Christ and assuming even more consciously the service to the Schoenstatt Family with its Tabor ideal.