We owe missionaries – the best ambassadors this country ever had – a debt of gratitude

TOMORROW is Mission Sunday, and it’s time to say a heartfelt ‘thanks’ to the countless women and men who built Ireland’s unrivalled reputation overseas long before the foundation of the Irish State. I speak, of course, of Irish missionary priests and religious people – those who left these shores for unfamiliar lands to try to make their adopted countries better places and enrich the lives of those they met.

Many of them died there among the people they served, destined never to see their homeland again. But, that was the deal – particularly for those who went to what we now call developing countries in the 19th century when long-distance travel meant months aboard a ship.

I heard an elderly Dublin-born monk who was home on leave from Zambia recently remark that he is now “more African than Irish”. The great genius behind mission, of course, is that when it is lived well, one becomes not an outsider, but a fellow traveller. They call it inculturation – the gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a new culture.

Those missionaries that remain are mostly elderly now. What we call the Irish missionary movement is now in sharp decline, with precious few new recruits. But, it remains a fascinating feature of any visit by an Irish president or politician to a developing nation that there is a well-established Irish community of nuns and priests living in that country sharing the sorrows and despairs, the joys and hopes, of some of the planet’s most vulnerable people.

While Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II or France’s President Emmanuel Macron carry the weight of an often-bloody colonial past on foreign visits, thanks to our missionaries, Irish leaders are welcomed with warmth and gratitude and can take pride in visiting countries Irish missionaries helped birth.

President Mary McAleese used to say that Irish missionaries were the best ambassadors the country ever had as she would tour countries with hospitals named for St Patrick and schools in honour of St Brigid.

It’s rare to strike up a conversation with a Nigerian taxi driver in Dublin that doesn’t turn to fond childhood memories of Irish missionaries.

And, unlike diplomatic missions, the missionaries don’t quit when the going gets tough. Take 75-yearold Fr Vincent Screene, who has been in Venezuela for the past 50 years. He was home recently on a visit to his native Co Galway, but from the moment he set foot on Irish soil, he was itching to get back to Venezuela to try to do what he can to alleviate the suffering.

Or Columban missionary and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Fr Shay Cullen, who runs a rescue service in the Philippines for children who are exploited or trafficked in the sex industry.

It’s always dangerous to name names, of course, because for every Irish missionary that we know about, there were and are hundreds of others living quiet lives of service. They left Ireland first and foremost to bring the Christian Gospel, but were wise enough to know that St Francis of Assisi was right when he said that “wherever you go, preach the Gospel – and if necessary, use words”. They often found themselves catapulted into civil conflicts and standing up for the rights of oppressed people against brutal and uncompromising regimes.

In Africa, Asia and Latin America, generations of Irish missionaries also found a new way to be the Church – a call that often fell on deaf ears at home. Stripped of the trappings of power and influence, they were able to realise a vision of a poor Church for the poor. Encountering people unhindered by the toxic Victorian puritanism that so marked Irish Catholicism, they were able to build a joyful Church where people spoke not of ‘holy days of obligation’ but of feast days. I know it’s a great source

of disappointment that many returned missionaries try to bring their experiences to bear in the reform of the Catholic Church in Ireland only to find themselves politely dismissed.

It strikes me that this is a missed opportunity. Many of these missionaries thrived in a culture that was not Catholic, they surely have something to say to a culture where, according to the latest Census figures, those describing themselves as ‘no religion’ have increased by 76pc. Missionaries often found ways to adapt what they were saying to a culture that was not their own, they could teach the Church in Ireland a valuable lesson as it struggles to speak to a changed reality at home in an Ireland where most Church leaders will admit – at least privately – is mission territory.

Of course, it wasn’t all glorious – history never is. We’re all too painfully aware that a small number of missionaries abused the trust placed in them and took advantage of children and vulnerable adults. Some others lacked the sensitivity that a new culture requires.

But to be a member of the Catholic Church is to carry the mantle of both the worst sin and the finest heroism of its members. To be part of this Church makes you part of what has been done wrong in the name of Christianity, but it also identifies you with some of the finest people this country has ever produced. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude – we’ll never see their likes again.

Missionaries could teach the Church here a valuable lesson as it struggles to speak to a changed reality