Description
About the book
An Adventure in Faith: The Story of the Chulucanas Prelature, first published in 1989, detailed the history of the mission of the American Augustinian provinces (led first by the Midwest Province, then with the Eastern and Western provinces) from the mid 1960’s through to the 1980s. This new edition published in 2026 adds to the 1989 edition with 2 new pieces. In the first few pages there is an article written by John Lydon OSA, from the Villanova Province who lived in Peru in a period which overlapped with the period in which Robert Prevost OSA, now Pope Leo XIV, also worked in Peru. At the end of the new edition there is a piece by Bishop Edinson Farfán Córdova, OSA Bishop of Chiclayo, who succeeded Robert Prevost OSA as Bishop of Chiclayo.
About the author
John Joseph Kelly, OSA was born on November 26, 1915, in DuBois, Pennsylvania, and professed simple vows on Sept. 10, 1935. He received a MA in Theology from The Catholic University, Washington D.C. and was ordained to the priesthood on May 28, 1942.
From 1943 to 1949, Fr Kelly served in Cuba in parishes of San Agustin and Santa Rita, and at the Augustinian Universidad de Santo Tomas de Villanueva. In 1948 he completed his Doctorate in Philosophy and Letters at the Universidad de Havana. In 1951, he was named President of the Augustinian University. Expelled from Cuba by the Castro regime, Prior General Luciano Rubio asked Fr Kelly to serve in Santiago, Chile. He was there from 1962 to 1964. In 1964, Fr Kelly returned to the United States and served in the California Province. In 1976, Fr Kelly requested assignment to the missions in Chulucanas, Peru and he worked there until 1985, when he returned to the United States and served at Biscayne College/Saint Thomas University in Miami. He died in 2006 just short of his 91st birthday. Fr Kelly wrote a biography of Fr Lorenzo Spirale, OSA, God’s Street Sweeper, and other publications about the Peruvian missions, Adventure in Faith: The Story of the Chulucanas Prelature, and Morropon Mission Letters. He also wrote a brief history of the Universidad de Santo Tomas de Villanueva, Havan
