Yes, I studied with the Society of the Divine Word in the mid 70’s and early 8o’s and presently work with Divine Word Missionaries as a lay missionary here in Japan. I’m biased toward the Society and feel they are one of the most active and effective missionary societies in the Church today. They are generally quiet about their work and, like you, many folks don’t know very much about them. They are an international missionary society founded by St. Arnold Jansen in 1875 in Holland, just across the border from Germany. The founder’s original intention was to found a German foreign missionary society, but Bismark’s Kulturekamph forced the founder to begin his society in Holland, thus giving it an international outlook from the very beginning. Today Indonesians represent the largest nationality in the Society and the Superior General is a Filipino, one of the few major religious orders in the Church today with a superior who is not a westerner. The SVD (Societas Verbi Divini) are active in numerous countries throughout the world, including the U.S., where their missionary activity has centered on the Black American Church, especially in Louisiana, Mississippi, and the inner city of Chicago. The present Bishops of Beaumont, Texas and Memphis, Tennessee are members of the SVD, as is one of the retired auxillary Bishops of Washington D.C. Indeed, the first Black Bishop in this century, Bishop Harold Perry of New Orleans, was an SVD. Today the SVD in the United States has been blessed with numerous vocations from the Vietnamese community and continue to send numerous missionaries abroad each year. They are serious about the international charism of their Society and each member is expected to be willing to leave his home country and culture if called upon to serve in a foreign mission. I’m not sure what you mean by “ideologies” in your post, but you will find the Society extremely faithful to the Church, though fully aware that the “missions” are a world to themselves that often requires flexibility and patience on the party of the missionary. Perhaps for this reason they are highly respected in missionary circles and are among the few religious orders in the Church whose membership is rising. I hope this helps you as you go to Chicago.
