DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1992, the centenary of his congregation, Scott 1113Fr. Valentín Salinero García, SJ, founder of the Congregation of Religious of the Apostolate of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RA), was born in Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, in Spain 10 November 1840. He entered the Jesuits in 1859. His training as a Jesuit took place in Cuba, the United States, France, Portugal and Spain. From the first years of his religious life he worked in a wide variety of apostolic ministries in Cuba. With the help of five members of the Apostolate of Prayer, an association of which he was the promoter, he founded the congregation in Havana on December 18, 1891, to counteract the religious indifference and the secular education of Cuba. Its purpose is that people may know and experience the love God has for them. His life and writings bear the marks of his Ignatian spirit: humility, mildness, obedience, unconditional commitment to the will and greater glory of God. He died 28 September 1913 at the age of 73.
The congregation expanded in its first years throughout the island of Cuba, and since 1906 has spread through Spain, first in San Sebastián, later in Madrid, Zaragoza, Santander, Valladolid, and in 1970 at the Sacred Heart College in Olivenza (Badajoz). In 1943 its first mission opened in Dajabón in the Dominican Republic, and later in Santo Domingo. In 1961 the congregation was forced to leave Cuba, since it could no longer pursue its educational mission there. But this brought about its further expansion to Miami, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Venezuela.
