About CICM

CICM is an exclusively Missionary Institute of religious priests and brothers. Its members are called to go beyond geographical and religious boundaries to share Jesus Christ with all those who do not know him.

The CICM missionary commits himself to his Mission through a total gift of self to God by the profession of the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience in the Institute. By following Jesus as a member of a community, he proclaims that God is the ultimate reality of his life and keeps alive among the people hope for the Kingdom and its justice.

In 1999 there are some 1300 CICM missionaries in various parts of the world. They live and work in 28 countries throughout Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Europe. The latest new ventures are in Mongolia, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and Cuba.

The acronym CICM stands for Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (in Latin: Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae). In Singapore, CICM is popularly known as Scheut Missions. The name Scheut, meaning shot (the distance an arrow flies) or, according to others, shoot or sprout, refers to a suburb of Brussels, Belgium. It is here that on November 28, 1862 Father Theophiel Verbist, a Belgian diocesan priest, founded a Missionary Institute with China as mission field uppermost on his mind

Father Verbist and his first group of followers set out for their mission in August 1865. Less than three years later, on February 23, 1868, the Founder of CICM died in Inner Mongolia. On hearing of his death, Pope Pius IX said, "the man may die... God will not allow his work to disappear."

SOURCE: http://www.veritas.org.sg/scheut-cicm/

Permission granted by Fr. Paul E. Staes, cicm through e-mail last 26 February 2001.