60 Years of Missionary Service

Fr. Joseph Taschner, SVD, now 88,  celebrated his 60th ordination anniversary on September 25 at the Mary Consolatrix of the Eucharist chapel  in Angin, Naguilian, La Union.
Bishop Artemio Rillera of the Diocese of San Fernando of La Union, in his short message before the final blessing, thanked Fr. Taschner for his “gift of priesthood to the Philippines.”  Present during the Concelebrated Mass  were PHN Provincial Fr. Jerome Adriatico, SVD, Fr. Emil Pati, SVD, Fr. Elmer Loreto, SVD, Fr. Macario Apuya, SVD, Fr. Nick Vergara, SVD, Fr. Manolito Baroña, SVD, and Fr. Andy Cosalan, a former student of Fr. Taschner at Immaculate Conception School of Theology (ICST) in Vigan, Ilocos Sur. People he helped through the years, particularly from Vigan, also came.
He first served as Chaplain of the Sisters of Mary Consolatrix Monastery in Naguilian, La Union since 1988. The congregation’s founder, Mother Marie Alexis de Jesus Pacis, 91, considers Fr. Taschner as  co-founder of her congregation which has the special task of praying for the Church hierarchy, the Holy Father, Bishops, priests and religious. The congregation was founded in 1976.

Short Biography of Fr. Joseph Taschner, SVD
Fr. Joseph Taschner is the eldest of five children to a family of farmers in Austria. At ten, he already wanted to become a priest, but poverty, and a sick mother held him back. His teacher told him, “If God wants you to become a priest, and you want it, God will give you the money.”
A year later, he was “tentatively” accepted at the minor seminary of St. Rupert of the Society of the Divine Word. He was only asked to pay a small part of the tuition fee.
In June of 1939, he entered the novitiate of the SVD in Western Germany. By March 1941, together with other seminarians, he was called to the military service. He was assigned near Moscow, nursing wounded soldiers near the frontlines and served as interpreter of the Russian language. In 1945, he got wounded and was brought to a hospital in Denmark where he remained until the end of the war, and became a prisoner of war to the English Armed Forces.
Fr. Taschner  took his first religious vow on March 6, 1941, and was allowed to renew them every year, before two fellow soldiers as witnesses.
In October 1945, he went back to the seminary in St. Augustine where he continued his novitiate and his second year of Philosophy. When he finished his novitiate in June 1946, and had taken his final exams in Philosophy, he was transferred to the seminary in St. Gabriel for his studies in Theology. With five others, he was ordained priest on September 25, 1949.
For his mission appointment, he asked to be sent to Japan. He was told to go to Rome instead to continue his studies. He went on to take his doctorate in Theology. He waited for an assignment in one of the major seminaries. But first, Fr. Superior Grosse-Kappenberg appointed him as his private secretary and archivist of the Curia generalitia, and at the same time assistant of the Novice Master.
In 1961, he was assigned to the Philippines. He taught Moral Theology and Patrology at Christ the King Seminary in Quezon City, and then transferred to Tagaytay in 1964.
In 1970, he was assigned in Vigan to teach at the seminary for secular priests of the Northern dioceses. At that time, the SVD was in charge of the seminary. While in Vigan, Fr. Taschner helped the poor by helping them build decent homes to live in. in the course of time, three villages were put up: St. Joseph’s Village, St. Lorenzo Ruiz Village and St. Mary’s Village, all in Vigan.
Fr. Taschner also extends help to the children of lepers, who came to be known as the “little souls of Culion”. Together with friends and benefactors, they were able to send these children to school. They are now professionals, some even working in foreign countries as well.
Fr. Taschner is also a pioneer of the Focolare movement in the Philippines.