On Saturday, 30 April 2022, on the Solemnity of the Patron Saint of the African Province of St Richard Pampuri, the 450th JUBILEE YEAR OF THE RECOGNITION OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF SAINT JOHN OF GOD by Pope St Pius V's bull LICET EX DEBITO was celebrated throughout the Province.  During the celebration, Brothers Fidèle SANHONGOU (BENIN), Abraham ADAVON (TOGO), Dominique ADOKOU (TOGO) and Emmanuel LENGUE (TOGO) made their solemn profession.

The celebration was organised in the St John of God Hospital in Afagnan (TOGO), the Province’s first establishment founded in 1964, attended by a large number of Brothers, Co-workers, priests, major superiors, men and women Religious from various institutes, relatives of professed Brothers, the Prefect of Bas-Mono, local government representatives, religious leaders, friends and benefactors.

Mgr Isaac Jogues GAGLO, the local Ordinary, presided at the Eucharist. In his homily, he reminded all the Brothers and Co-workers of the need for our witness to be rooted in Christ in order to continue God's work of self-denial through the practice of Hospitality in the footsteps of St John of God and his first companions. 

In his words of thanks, the Provincial Superior, Brother Rodrigue DJITRINOU, who received the vows of the professed representing the Superior General, drew attention to the auspicious coincidence of the Jubilee celebration with the Memorial of St Pius V, who issued the Bull LICET EX DEBITO, which falls on April 30 in the Universal Church. Brother Rodrigue seized the opportunity to urge the Brothers and Co-workers to continue to love their neighbours in whom, he recalled, we take care of the God whom we cannot see, but who appears to us in the faces of the sick and needy.

The celebration continued for the Hospitaller Family on the following day at the Interprovincial Novitiate of Saint Richard Pampuri in Agoè-Nyivé (TOGO) where seven new novices entered on Sunday, 1 May 2022.