Funeral Mass for Brother Eugene

The funeral Mass for Brother Eugene Priante was celebrated yesterday in Alba, Italy, presided over by Fr Celso Godilano, the Vicar General of the Society of St Paul.

Members of the Society, the wider Pauline family, relatives and friends gathered in the church at our Mother House to commend Eugene’s soul to God and to inter his mortal remains in the cemetery at Alba.

His sudden and unexpected death in London on 14th April came as a great shock to his many friends from around the world. Returning his body to Italy for the funeral was not without administrative difficulties, both here in London and in Italy. However, this was accomplished thanks to the expect services of Chelsea Funeral Directors.

Eugene was born in Sicily in 1941. He joined the Society of St Paul in 1956, making his perpetual profession in Rome in 1967. During his entire time in the Society, he worked in the production side of the publishing and distribution activities in the Province of Italy and the Region of England-Ireland.

In the official announcement at the time of his death, issued from the General House in Rome, Fr Vincenzo Vitale wrote:

"A sincere character, a worker, capable of fraternal relations and of humour, pragmatic and down-to-earth: these are certainly the qualities of this disciple that will be remembered by his confreres. We now entrust him to the Divine Master, the conqueror of death ‘who will transform our lowly bodies to conform it to his glorious body’ (Phil 3:20), so that he may enjoy heavenly citizenship together with the numerous company of the Pauline Family in heaven."