Reverend Father David Raju Maddineni, C.Ss.R.

Reverend Father David Raju Maddineni, C.Ss.R.

• Province of Bangalore, India

• Date of birth:  15th May 1954

• First Profession:  31st May 1976

• Ordination:   24th June 1982

Family:  Born into a very religious family.  Whole family had the practice of going to mass and confession regularly. Besides the rosary recitation in the church every evening at 5.30pm, recitation of the family rosary too has been a strict practice at home before the evening meal.  They are five siblings: three brothers and two sisters. The older sister is a nun in the congregation of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Two brothers and one sister are married and all of them are doing well. One of the eldest brother’s son is also a Redemptorist. He has finished his doctorate in canon law in Ottawa,Canada.  The younger sister’s daughter is also a JMJ nun doing her masters in theology in Louaene University, Belgium.  All the other children are doing jobs like soft ware engineers, teachers, Doctor etc.

Experience as a Priest:  After the ordination in 1982, He had done one year pastoral year during which he is taught how to write sermons and preach to different groups of people, priests and nuns. He was sent back to his native state where he had worked until 1995 fulfilling various responsibilities, like formator, missioner and parish priest.  In 1995 he was asked to go to Kenya as a missioner and he accepted the responsibility willingly.  He has worked in Kenya from 1995 to 2000 as a missionar, formator and superior of the early community in Kenya.

In 2000 he was asked once again to go to Zimbabwe to work with the British Redemptorists as the Kenyan students were going to Zimbabwe to study philosophy. In obedience to his superiors, he accompanied the young Kenyan students to Zimbabwe.  He had worked there tirelessly for five years as formator, associate pastor and missionary preacher.  Fr. Ronald M’cAnsh and Fr. David worked hard to manage two churches, a 1000 families in each and 40 students studying for priesthood.

In 2005, he returned to India with the intention of settling down in India, but his superiors in Zimbabwe and South Africa requested his provincial in India to send him to South Africa as the Novice Master. Fr. David had agreed generously to go to South Africa although he had decided to stay back in India.  A few weeks after this he had a heart attack and had a by-pass surgery.  After recovering from this major surgery he went to Rustenburg diocese in South Africa to take up his responsibility as novice master.  He had worked in Rustenburg for two years.  During this time, he not only taught the young men every single day,but also went to preach retreats to sisters occasionally.

After two years, there were no students to enter noviciate from three countries – Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa.  So He went back to Zimbabwe to help in a suburban parish, Borowdale. After a year he had gone to Rome, U.K. and Ireland to do sabbatical studies.  Fr. Davd had returned to India in 2008. In 2009 he was asked to pionier a new parish and Redemptorist foundation in the diocese of Vijayawada.  He had done a lot of work during 5 and half years he worked there.  He built a presbytery, bought land and brought sisters of St. Lucy to start a school in the rural area.

After this he was sent once again to London to help Redemptorists in Clapham parish for two years from 2015 to 2017. He once again returned to his mother province in Sept 2017.  He has been working in Tenali last 2 and half years.

In short, Fr. David has a wide range of experience within India, Africa and UK doing parish ministry, preaching to nuns and priests. He has also built small churches, parish house, and also worked for the poor who were hit by serious cyclone in 1990 in the coastal region of Andhra Pradesh.

Fr. David comes from the same community as of Ravipadu people.  They have a Catholic history of 300 years since their ancestors were converted by the Jesuit missionaries in the 1700’s.

Fr. David belongs to the congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists).  St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, an Italian, founded the Redemptorists in 1732 in Naples to serve the most neglected and the poor.