REVEREND SUNNY FRANCIS, SVD
Catholic missionary priest Sunny Francis has been named president of the Techny Land Development. Fr. Francis also leads a state-supported reforestation project in Techny, Ill., 25 miles north of downtown Chicago.
During the past four years, Fr. Francis and his team have planted 38,700 indigenous hardwood trees on 40 acres of land that was once used as farmland. As part of the project, they also protect the environmental integrity of forested area on the Techny property that has remained untouched for centuries. To preserve the native species, they regularly thrash and remove invasive plants—as opposed to the common practice of treating the unwanted plants with chemicals.
A native of Kerala, India, Fr. Francis has been a member of the Society of the Divine Word, a 134-year-old Catholic missionary order, since 1982. Along with representing his religious congregation at the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poznan, Poland in 2008, he serves as director of Society of the Divine Word Charitable Gift Annuity Program, one of the oldest Catholic annuity programs in the United States. The proceeds of this program help missionaries who are living and working with the poor and marginalized throughout the world.
Before arriving in the United States in 1995, Fr. Francis worked as co-pastor of a parish in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, and as a professor at Divine Word University in Tacloban City, Philippines. Along with academic degrees in philosophy and theology, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics, sociology and politics from the University of Mysore in India and a Master of Science degree in guidance and counseling from De LaSalle University in Manila, Philippines.
Fr. Francis’s work with the world’s poor, coupled with his knowledge of reforestation and economics, give him a unique perspective on the world’s climate change crisis and possible solutions.
Members of the media wishing to interview Fr. Francis should contact Theresa Carson at 847-412-1606. Those wishing to learn more about Techny Land Development should call Ginny Mulligan at 847-272-2700, ext. 1670.