By using the plus and minus icons in the bottom left hand corner of the above interactive map, you will be able to zoom in and out and learn more about the OSS communities. To learn more about each community, click on any one of the red icons. You can also find further information on our communities below.
To view a larger copy of the map above, click on the square icon in the top upper right hand corner of the map.
To view a larger copy of the map above, click on the square icon in the top upper right hand corner of the map.
GERMANY: The Opus Spiritus Sancti communities were founded in the village of Mammolshain in the Diocese of Limburg, Germany, by Fr. Bernhard Bendel who was the parish priest in Mammolshain at that time. What would later develop into the Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests and the Community of Apostolic Christians began about 1952. There was considerable growth and development within the communities during those early years, although two major changes occurred in the 1960’s. One was that the communities began to become international with the first outreach to the State of Iowa in the United States and then to Tanzania, Africa and to India; the other was the noticeable crisis in European Catholicism that began in the 1960’s. This crisis showed itself in various ways in the Church, among others in the decline in religious vocations, also among the communities in the OSS. The Community of Apostolic Christians and the Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests both have groups within the Diocese of Limburg and the SIP is also located in the Diocese of Wuerzburg.
IOWA: The Opus Spiritus Sancti communities began in the United States in 1962 with the coming of the first Holy Spirit Sisters from Germany to Sioux City, Iowa. Soon after their coming some diocesan priests became interested in this new community as did some lay people, all of whom were encouraged through the regular visits of Fr. Bernhard Bendel. The first members of the Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests prayed their First Dedication in 1964. The Community of Apostolic Christians began in that same year. Today the SIP has sixteen members in the Diocese of Sioux City. These priests are involved in parish ministries as appointed by their Bishop. The Community of Apostolic Christians has five groups in the Diocese of Sioux City in the cities of Sioux City, Boone, Algona, Ft. Dodge and Milford with about forty-five members. These lay people are involved in a variety of apostolic works in their civic and parish communities.
OREGON: In the 1970’s a married couple from Sioux City moved to Beaverton, Oregon due to a company transfer. They quickly began to talk about the Community of Apostolic Christians and the spirituality and life of the Opus Spiritus Sancti with friends at their parish. In 1981 a CAC group was officially established in Beaverton.
ARIZONA: A Sioux City, Iowa, couple moved to Sun City Arizona in 1994 and the same year invited new neighbors and other friends to form a spiritual study group following the Opus Spiritus Sancti Goals and Principles. This group, called the Valley of the Sun Circle, grew to 26 members. In addition to their deep and lively meetings of prayer, study, and discussion, this group has created a financial fund that has helped many Opus Spiritus Sancti apostolates around the world. In addition, members are involved in a variety of apostolates in their parishes and in local charitable organizations.
RHODE ISLAND: The Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests began in Providence, Rhode Island in 1985 when the first member prayed his First Dedication. Fr. Douglas Grant became acquainted with the OSS communities during the years when he was a seminarian in Louvain, Belgium from 1975-1979. Later as a priest he made a retreat with the SIP members from the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, during which he prayed the First Dedication. That same year eight other priests made a commitment to begin to meet monthly for one year to discern whether or not they had a vocation to the OSS. Today there is a committed group of SIP members in the Diocese of Providence.
AFRICA: Opus Spiritus Sancti communities are now located in Africa in the countries of Tanzania, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Swaziland.
TANZANIA: First contacts of the OSS with Tanzania began in 1960 when three priests from Tanzania who were studying in Rome met Fr. Bendel at the World Eucharistic Congress that was held in Munich, Germany. After returning to Tanzania after their studies these priests were able to win some of their brother priests also to the SIP. Fr. Bendel and Fr. Karl-Wilhelm Bruno, who would later become his successor as International Rector, visited Tanzania in 1964. From these early beginnings the SIP community then spread from the Diocese of Morogoro to the Diocese of Moshi. During the early 1960’s many lay people became interested in the Community of Apostolic Christians and the community grew rapidly until today when there are seven groups of CAC members in the Diocese of Moshi with almost 200 members. More recently the CAC has also established a group in the neighboring Archdiocese of Arusha.
MALAWI: The spirituality and life of the Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests was introduced to Malawi by Fr. Eduard Achermann, a diocesan priest from Switzerland, who was a professor for Old Testament exegesis at Kachebere Major Seminary. Fr. Achermann had heard about the Opus Spiritus Sancti while he was a professor of New Testament studies at Paramiho Major Seminary in Tanzania in the 1970’s. He introduced the same spirituality to the seminarians at Kachebere, Malawi, in 1976 and at St. Peter’s Seminary in Zomba, Malawi, in 1979. Those seminarians who had formed an SIP group in their seminary days and who were subsequently ordained to the priesthood between 1976 and 1979, along with two other priests who had been ordained earlier, continued in their formation in the SIP and prayed their First Dedication in 1982, marking the official beginning of the SIP in Malawi. Today the SIP community members come from the Dioceses of Mzuzu, Lilongwe, Dedza, Blantyre, Mangochi and Zomba.
In 1997 nine lay people met at Joli, an outstation church of Tsangano Parish in the Diocese of Dedza, to learn more about the CAC. From these beginnings the CAC has now grown to include members in the Dioceses of Mzuzu, Dedza, Blantyre and Zomba.
KENYA: The Community of Apostolic Christians began in Kenya in the early 1990’s with the visit of Landeline Mleghe, a CAC member from Moshi, Tanzania, to his cousin Fr. Felix Lekule, then parish priest at the Malava Catholic Parish at the town of Malava in the Diocese of Kakamega on the Western side of Kenya. While visiting at the parish Mr. Mleghe met some lay people with whom he talked about the CAC, its spirituality and life. These interested people joined together to meet regularly. Since there were no other Opus Spiritus Sancti members in that area who could help with the formation of this CAC group, the members began to form themselves in the spirituality of the OSS by studying the various OSS documents. They were supported in their efforts by Mr. Landeline Mleghe and by Fr. Thomas Flanagan, then International Rector, who visited the group from Germany several times and facilitated extended times of formation with the group. From Malava the CAC spread to the nearby towns of Buyangu and Shirotsa where there are now also groups of members. Some diocesan priests expressed interest in forming a group of the Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests in the Diocese of Kakmega, but it has not materialized.
UGANDA: In 1993 Fr. Francis Ocaya from the Archdiocese of Gulu, Uganda, became acquainted with the Opus Spiritus Sancti communities. Fr. Francis expressed a great desire to learn more about the OSS and particularly about the Secular Institute for Diocesan Priests. Fr. James McCormick, then the International Rector of the OSS communities, followed up with a visit to Gulu. In 1995 he and Fr. Thomas Flanagan, the new International Rector, visited Gulu again and presented a seminar for a number of the priests. These were the early beginnings of the development of the SIP in Gulu and there is now an active group of diocesan priests who belong to the community. During the various visits by the International Rectors and through the work of the local priests many lay people came to know about the OSS and about the Community of Apostolic Christians. Today there is a thriving group of CAC members in the Archdiocese of Gulu. The leaders of this adult CAC group have also begun to establish a CAC youth group as well.
SOUTH AFRICA and SWAZILAND: The beginning of the SIP in South Africa and Swaziland can be attributed to Fr. Eduard Achermann, a member of the SIP from Switzerland, who had been teaching in the seminary in Malawi. Fr. Achermann moved to South Africa and eventually began teaching at St. John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria. There he introduced the OSS spirituality to the seminarians, some of whom began to form an “Opus Seminarians’ Group”. The seminary faculty was happy that some seminarians took interest in the Opus Spirituality and were meeting weekly. Later they also began some apostolic works on weekends. Over the course of the years the group was visited regularly by Fr. Jim McCormick and Fr. Thomas Flanagan, during the years when both were International Rectors of the OSS. Some seminarians at Pretoria came from the Kingdom of Swaziland. As these seminarians from South Africa and Swaziland were ordained they began to form SIP groups in their home dioceses. The priests and seminarians who were interested in the SIP often met together, alternately in South Africa or in Swaziland, for their annual three-day retreat.
INDIA: The Opus Spiritus Sancti communities in India trace their beginnings to three priests from the Syro Malankara Rite Diocese of Thiruvalla in the State of Kerala in southern India. All three were students in Europe in the 1960’s, two in Koenigstein, Germany and one in Paris, France. They became acquainted with the OSS and were interested in joining the Secular Institute for Diocesan Priests. One of them prayed a dedication to the Holy Spirit and made a contract with the SIP in December 1968. In January 1969 Fr. Bernhard Bendel and Fr. Karl-Wilhelm Bruno visited the Diocese of Thiruvalla at the invitation of the Bishop, Mar Zacharias Athanasius. This early visit and others that followed led, in the course of the years, to the establishment of all five of the OSS communities in various states in India. SIP and CAC communities now have members in various states of India: Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Fr. Raymond Ambroise, an SIP member from Hyderabad in Telangana, describes the OSS in India this way, “The Opus Spiritus Sancti is the ‘Work of the Holy Spirit’ in the individual lives of members who belong to it and together form one or the other of the five communities which make up the larger Opus community. These are simple young persons, often without much formal training, but open to this Work of the Holy Spirit with trust and confidence, ready to be filled, empowered, used as instruments of the Spirit to ‘become this Work’ and to ‘build the Community’ in service of the Reign of God in the world around us.”
PHILIPPINES: A diocesan priest from the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, Fr. Jude McGeough, became a candidate for the SIP in Providence. Previously, Fr. Jude had worked as a Columban missionary in the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao in the Philippines. Fr. Jude met with then International Rector, Fr. Jim McCormick, and assured him that he thought the Archbishop of Tuguegaro would be interested in welcoming the OSS communities to his archdiocese. Fr. Jude arranged a first visit for Fr. Jim to Tuguegarao in 1989 where Fr. Jim was able to make the first introduction of the Opus Spiritus Sancti communities to the Archbishop and to some of the diocesan priests. The Archbishop, Diosdado Talamayan, did welcome the communities and further visits followed by Fr. Jim, Fr. Thomas Flanagan and Fr. Raymond Ambroise from India. These visits all gave support to the growing number of priests who became interested in the SIP and also allowed contacts with lay people who became interested in the Community of Apostolic Christians. Today there is an SIP group in the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao with fifteen members. One of whom is Archbishop Ric Baccay, who was installed in January, 2020 as the Archbishop of Tuguegarao. There are also three groups of the CAC.
PARISH LIFE
CAC members are active within the parish and/or the diocese, often in leadership roles. Where the CAC and SIP are together at the same parish there are especially great opportunities for the Opus to share the Easter-Pentecost message.
IOWA: The Opus Spiritus Sancti communities began in the United States in 1962 with the coming of the first Holy Spirit Sisters from Germany to Sioux City, Iowa. Soon after their coming some diocesan priests became interested in this new community as did some lay people, all of whom were encouraged through the regular visits of Fr. Bernhard Bendel. The first members of the Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests prayed their First Dedication in 1964. The Community of Apostolic Christians began in that same year. Today the SIP has sixteen members in the Diocese of Sioux City. These priests are involved in parish ministries as appointed by their Bishop. The Community of Apostolic Christians has five groups in the Diocese of Sioux City in the cities of Sioux City, Boone, Algona, Ft. Dodge and Milford with about forty-five members. These lay people are involved in a variety of apostolic works in their civic and parish communities.
OREGON: In the 1970’s a married couple from Sioux City moved to Beaverton, Oregon due to a company transfer. They quickly began to talk about the Community of Apostolic Christians and the spirituality and life of the Opus Spiritus Sancti with friends at their parish. In 1981 a CAC group was officially established in Beaverton.
ARIZONA: A Sioux City, Iowa, couple moved to Sun City Arizona in 1994 and the same year invited new neighbors and other friends to form a spiritual study group following the Opus Spiritus Sancti Goals and Principles. This group, called the Valley of the Sun Circle, grew to 26 members. In addition to their deep and lively meetings of prayer, study, and discussion, this group has created a financial fund that has helped many Opus Spiritus Sancti apostolates around the world. In addition, members are involved in a variety of apostolates in their parishes and in local charitable organizations.
RHODE ISLAND: The Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests began in Providence, Rhode Island in 1985 when the first member prayed his First Dedication. Fr. Douglas Grant became acquainted with the OSS communities during the years when he was a seminarian in Louvain, Belgium from 1975-1979. Later as a priest he made a retreat with the SIP members from the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, during which he prayed the First Dedication. That same year eight other priests made a commitment to begin to meet monthly for one year to discern whether or not they had a vocation to the OSS. Today there is a committed group of SIP members in the Diocese of Providence.
AFRICA: Opus Spiritus Sancti communities are now located in Africa in the countries of Tanzania, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Swaziland.
TANZANIA: First contacts of the OSS with Tanzania began in 1960 when three priests from Tanzania who were studying in Rome met Fr. Bendel at the World Eucharistic Congress that was held in Munich, Germany. After returning to Tanzania after their studies these priests were able to win some of their brother priests also to the SIP. Fr. Bendel and Fr. Karl-Wilhelm Bruno, who would later become his successor as International Rector, visited Tanzania in 1964. From these early beginnings the SIP community then spread from the Diocese of Morogoro to the Diocese of Moshi. During the early 1960’s many lay people became interested in the Community of Apostolic Christians and the community grew rapidly until today when there are seven groups of CAC members in the Diocese of Moshi with almost 200 members. More recently the CAC has also established a group in the neighboring Archdiocese of Arusha.
MALAWI: The spirituality and life of the Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests was introduced to Malawi by Fr. Eduard Achermann, a diocesan priest from Switzerland, who was a professor for Old Testament exegesis at Kachebere Major Seminary. Fr. Achermann had heard about the Opus Spiritus Sancti while he was a professor of New Testament studies at Paramiho Major Seminary in Tanzania in the 1970’s. He introduced the same spirituality to the seminarians at Kachebere, Malawi, in 1976 and at St. Peter’s Seminary in Zomba, Malawi, in 1979. Those seminarians who had formed an SIP group in their seminary days and who were subsequently ordained to the priesthood between 1976 and 1979, along with two other priests who had been ordained earlier, continued in their formation in the SIP and prayed their First Dedication in 1982, marking the official beginning of the SIP in Malawi. Today the SIP community members come from the Dioceses of Mzuzu, Lilongwe, Dedza, Blantyre, Mangochi and Zomba.
In 1997 nine lay people met at Joli, an outstation church of Tsangano Parish in the Diocese of Dedza, to learn more about the CAC. From these beginnings the CAC has now grown to include members in the Dioceses of Mzuzu, Dedza, Blantyre and Zomba.
KENYA: The Community of Apostolic Christians began in Kenya in the early 1990’s with the visit of Landeline Mleghe, a CAC member from Moshi, Tanzania, to his cousin Fr. Felix Lekule, then parish priest at the Malava Catholic Parish at the town of Malava in the Diocese of Kakamega on the Western side of Kenya. While visiting at the parish Mr. Mleghe met some lay people with whom he talked about the CAC, its spirituality and life. These interested people joined together to meet regularly. Since there were no other Opus Spiritus Sancti members in that area who could help with the formation of this CAC group, the members began to form themselves in the spirituality of the OSS by studying the various OSS documents. They were supported in their efforts by Mr. Landeline Mleghe and by Fr. Thomas Flanagan, then International Rector, who visited the group from Germany several times and facilitated extended times of formation with the group. From Malava the CAC spread to the nearby towns of Buyangu and Shirotsa where there are now also groups of members. Some diocesan priests expressed interest in forming a group of the Secular Institute of Diocesan Priests in the Diocese of Kakmega, but it has not materialized.
UGANDA: In 1993 Fr. Francis Ocaya from the Archdiocese of Gulu, Uganda, became acquainted with the Opus Spiritus Sancti communities. Fr. Francis expressed a great desire to learn more about the OSS and particularly about the Secular Institute for Diocesan Priests. Fr. James McCormick, then the International Rector of the OSS communities, followed up with a visit to Gulu. In 1995 he and Fr. Thomas Flanagan, the new International Rector, visited Gulu again and presented a seminar for a number of the priests. These were the early beginnings of the development of the SIP in Gulu and there is now an active group of diocesan priests who belong to the community. During the various visits by the International Rectors and through the work of the local priests many lay people came to know about the OSS and about the Community of Apostolic Christians. Today there is a thriving group of CAC members in the Archdiocese of Gulu. The leaders of this adult CAC group have also begun to establish a CAC youth group as well.
SOUTH AFRICA and SWAZILAND: The beginning of the SIP in South Africa and Swaziland can be attributed to Fr. Eduard Achermann, a member of the SIP from Switzerland, who had been teaching in the seminary in Malawi. Fr. Achermann moved to South Africa and eventually began teaching at St. John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria. There he introduced the OSS spirituality to the seminarians, some of whom began to form an “Opus Seminarians’ Group”. The seminary faculty was happy that some seminarians took interest in the Opus Spirituality and were meeting weekly. Later they also began some apostolic works on weekends. Over the course of the years the group was visited regularly by Fr. Jim McCormick and Fr. Thomas Flanagan, during the years when both were International Rectors of the OSS. Some seminarians at Pretoria came from the Kingdom of Swaziland. As these seminarians from South Africa and Swaziland were ordained they began to form SIP groups in their home dioceses. The priests and seminarians who were interested in the SIP often met together, alternately in South Africa or in Swaziland, for their annual three-day retreat.
INDIA: The Opus Spiritus Sancti communities in India trace their beginnings to three priests from the Syro Malankara Rite Diocese of Thiruvalla in the State of Kerala in southern India. All three were students in Europe in the 1960’s, two in Koenigstein, Germany and one in Paris, France. They became acquainted with the OSS and were interested in joining the Secular Institute for Diocesan Priests. One of them prayed a dedication to the Holy Spirit and made a contract with the SIP in December 1968. In January 1969 Fr. Bernhard Bendel and Fr. Karl-Wilhelm Bruno visited the Diocese of Thiruvalla at the invitation of the Bishop, Mar Zacharias Athanasius. This early visit and others that followed led, in the course of the years, to the establishment of all five of the OSS communities in various states in India. SIP and CAC communities now have members in various states of India: Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Fr. Raymond Ambroise, an SIP member from Hyderabad in Telangana, describes the OSS in India this way, “The Opus Spiritus Sancti is the ‘Work of the Holy Spirit’ in the individual lives of members who belong to it and together form one or the other of the five communities which make up the larger Opus community. These are simple young persons, often without much formal training, but open to this Work of the Holy Spirit with trust and confidence, ready to be filled, empowered, used as instruments of the Spirit to ‘become this Work’ and to ‘build the Community’ in service of the Reign of God in the world around us.”
PHILIPPINES: A diocesan priest from the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, Fr. Jude McGeough, became a candidate for the SIP in Providence. Previously, Fr. Jude had worked as a Columban missionary in the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao in the Philippines. Fr. Jude met with then International Rector, Fr. Jim McCormick, and assured him that he thought the Archbishop of Tuguegaro would be interested in welcoming the OSS communities to his archdiocese. Fr. Jude arranged a first visit for Fr. Jim to Tuguegarao in 1989 where Fr. Jim was able to make the first introduction of the Opus Spiritus Sancti communities to the Archbishop and to some of the diocesan priests. The Archbishop, Diosdado Talamayan, did welcome the communities and further visits followed by Fr. Jim, Fr. Thomas Flanagan and Fr. Raymond Ambroise from India. These visits all gave support to the growing number of priests who became interested in the SIP and also allowed contacts with lay people who became interested in the Community of Apostolic Christians. Today there is an SIP group in the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao with fifteen members. One of whom is Archbishop Ric Baccay, who was installed in January, 2020 as the Archbishop of Tuguegarao. There are also three groups of the CAC.
PARISH LIFE
CAC members are active within the parish and/or the diocese, often in leadership roles. Where the CAC and SIP are together at the same parish there are especially great opportunities for the Opus to share the Easter-Pentecost message.