Early Life
Opeka was born in Argentina, in San Martín, a suburb of Buenos Aires, to parents of Argentine Slovene parents. His father was from Begunje near Cerknica in Inner Carniola, his mother from Velike Lašče in Lower Carniola; they emigrated to Argentina to avoid the Communist Yugoslav regime of Josip Broz Tito. His father was a former Home Guard militiaman who escaped the summary killings in Kočevski Rog. He met with his mother, also a political refugee, in a Slovenian refugee camp in Italy, where they married. After marriage, they emigrated together to Argentina.
Pedro grew up in the streets of Buenos Aires. Very early as a child, from the age of 9, he worked with his father as a bricklayer. At 15, he hesitated between becoming a football professional and a priest. And he eventually decided to become a priest and enter the seminary of the Lazarists in Buenos Aires. At 20, he went to Ljubljana in Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia), to further his training. Two years later, In 1970, he went to Madagascar where he worked as a bricklayer in the parishes of the Lazarists.
He finished his studies at the Catholic Institute of Paris (1972-1975), where he learnt French. He met the Taizé Community near Cluny in France, who have their members supporting communities in 24 major cities around the globe, and travelled all over Europe.
Pedro Opeka speaks 7 languages of which French, English, Spanish (his mother tongue), Slovenian (second mother tongue), Italian, Latin and Magalasy (Madagascar).
Read more about this topic: Pedro Opeka
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, its probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The Heavens. Once an object of superstition, awe and fear. Now a vast region for growing knowledge. The distance of Venus, the atmosphere of Mars, the size of Jupiter, and the speed of Mercury. All this and more we know. But their greatest mystery the heavens have kept a secret. What sort of life, if any, inhabits these other planets? Human life, like ours? Or life extremely lower in the scale. Or dangerously higher.”
—Richard Blake, and William Cameron Menzies. Narrator, Invaders from Mars, at the opening of the movie (1953)