BRO TAGOY IS PRESIDENT OF ARCORES – INTERNATIONAL

The assembly of ARCORES elected a Filipino Religious to head the Augustinian Recollect International Solidarity Network. Fray Jaazeal Jakosalem, OAR, was elected President of the Augustinian Recollect International Solidarity Network (ARCORES). The General Assembly held on October 18-19 has decided his appointment to the presidency of the Network, as well as the appointment of Friar José Alberto Moreno as Vice President.

Fray Jakosalem has been, from 2006 to 2018, head of ARCORES Philippines. He made his Solemn Profession as an Augustinian Recollect in 1998. He studied Theology at the Recoletos School of Theology in the Philippines. He also holds a Master’s degree in Ecumenism from the University of Bonn (Germany). He has also served as administrator and member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos and administrator of the University of San Jose – Recoletos. In the 56th General Chapter of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, he was elected General Councilor, being responsible for the Social Apostolate Commission of the Order.

Meanwhile, Fray Jose Alberto Moreno, OAR is currently President of the Social Apostolate Commission of the Province of St. Nicholas of Tolentine. In 1996, he made his Solemn Profession as an Augustinian Recollect and was ordained a priest that year. From 2008 to 2018, he was Director of Lar Santa Monica, a project of ARCORES-Brazil that takes in girls and adolescents who are victims of sexual violence in the city of Fortaleza. Previously, he was a professor of Pastoral Theology and Catechetics at the Theological Center of the Augustinian Recollects in Marcilla (Navarra). He holds a degree in Theology from the Pontifical Salesian University of Rome.

Fray Jaazeal Jakosalem and Fray José Alberto Moreno replace Fray Antonio Carrón and Fray Simón Puertas as President and Vice President, respectively. (https://www.agustinosrecoletos.com/2022/10/jaazeal-jakosalem-presidente-arcores/?lang=en)

Fray Tagoy: “We just have to open our hearts”

Poverty is, for Fray Jaazeal Jakosalem, OAR an “experience” and that is how he faces it as the new president of the ARCORES International Solidarity Network .

Fray Jaazeal Jakosalem, OAR was born into a poor family, on a Philippine island with few resources. For this reason, the experience of poverty and attention to the poor have been the heart of his vocation as an Augustinian Recollect from the beginning. He will now work fully on it, as he has been doing for years, with the responsibility of president of the recently appointed Agustina Recoleta ARCORES International Solidarity Network . “I see poverty as an experience,” he says.

The religious sees the social situation with concern. “Our communities must take up the challenge of crisis, poverty and impoverishment,” he says. This is charity. Paraphrasing Pope Francis, in “listening to the cry of the poor” and making the needs of others our own. “We don’t need to create projects, we just have to open our hearts,” and he adds, “Share our hearts with the poor and those in need.”

As president of ARCORES, you will have to face numerous challenges. The one that, in his opinion, is most pressing is “getting everyone in the Augustinian Recollect family to participate” in ARCORES; in his words, “in this work of the Order and of the Church, and that the people in need”. Jaazeal Jakosalem does not believe that all religious men and women and laity know the mission of ARCORES and are involved, and this is necessary because the needs of the people are urgent. The solidarity of the Augustinian Recollect family is “a solidarity from the heart”. For this reason, he believes that it is “a continuous challenge” to share this type of solidarity and that it is characteristic of the Augustinian Recollect charism. “All of us are in a common solidarity”, he concludes. (https://www.agustinosrecoletos.com/2022/11/entrevista-jaazeal-jakosalem-arcores/)