Brother Gerard Stulens

born in Zutendaal 1925   deceased in Kessel-Lo 2003 first vow in Zuun 1948 CICM (Scheut) (Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary)  Congo : 1949 - 1999

Brother Gerard Stulens’s father, Laurens Stulens, popularly known as Box Lens, was a carpenter. His mother, Catharina Smits, from Vinke, wanted her son to become a priest and sent him to the Minor Seminary in Sint-Truiden. On both his father’s and mother’s side, there was already a “hiernoenk” — a priest in the family.

In 1936, Father Bollen returned to Zutendaal — a great celebration for a missionary. Missionaries were honored and respected, people of great esteem. Gerard also attended the celebration. Perhaps that was the seed that convinced him to go to the Minor Seminary himself.

After the liberation, classes resumed, but Brother Gerard chose instead to join the Scheut Missionaries as a brother. In May 1945, he went to Zuun, where, alongside his spiritual formation, he also worked in the carpentry workshop of Scheut.

Broeder Gerard na 10 jaar Congo een eerste keer terug in België.


Het pastoraal centrum Lindong van aartsbisdom Kinshasa. Br. Gerard Stulens ervoor die het gebowud heeft (1984-986)

In 1949, Brother Gerard Stulens left for Congo. He was immediately put to work , and not on any ordinary task. From 1949 to 1956, he and about a hundred workers helped build the immense King Baudouin Stadium, which could hold 100,000 spectators. The diocese called on him for his carpentry skills, but in the end he worked almost entirely on the stadium, where large-scale concrete construction was required. There he earned his nickname: “Gerard Beton” (Gerard Concrete).

There was much more to be built. The Brothers of Scheut took on nearly all the construction work—from furniture and windows to entire buildings—and Brother Gerard kept building.

In 1958, Brother Gerard returned to Zutendaal for the ordination of his brother Joe. He was welcomed as a hero. The following year, 1959, he set off once again for Congo, but by then chaos had broken out, leading a year later to Congo’s independence.

Brother Gerard resumed his work, helping to build, among other things, the Scheut study house and a large modern garage for the maintenance of the missionaries’ vehicles. Yet Congo was no longer the same as before independence—something Brother Gerard knew all too well. He worried deeply about education and the future of the children.

His heart was with the ordinary people, who had suffered greatly after independence. Jobs were scarce, and he watched with sorrow as years of missionary work were being undermined or even destroyed.

Yet Gerard never lost heart. He knew why and for whom he was doing it—for fifty years.

Broeder Gerard Stulens in Congo.