REMEMPTORIS MATER TRAINING YOUNG MEN AS PRIESTS
IN A DUNDALK HOUSE 16 MEN ARE TRAINING TO BE PRIESTS. ANNE CAMPBELLFINDS OUT THE ETHOS BEHIND THE REDEMPTORIS MATER, A NEW WAY OF FORMATION
BEAUTIFUL things can happen when you’re surrounded by beauty. In the just right environment, where everything around you is perfectly proportioned, coloured and finished, human minds can be elevated, greatness can be achieved. And one of the unshakeable structures of the ethos on which the Redemptoris Mater is founded is that beauty is God and God is beauty.
Simple beauty, in the way that everything - the seen and unseen - is structured, is immediately obvious from the moment you walk into the Redemptoris Mater Archdiocesan Missionary Seminary, at the end of John Street in Dundalk.
Crisp, pristine white walls are only adorned with the most striking and colourful, abstract religious images, each exactly the same size, exactly the same space apart, uniquely different in their depictions and original form, but entirely uniform in their finish.
Everything in this house, which was once the De La Salle home in Dundalk, is pure class, quality, but quietly so. From the finishes on the impossibly clean floors to the state of the art LED lighting, there is sophistication, but also a stripped back, if thoroughly modern simplicity.
No elevated ceilings with dusty architrave or polished-beyond-shiny parquet floors; none of the faded glamour of a Turkish hand-made rug nor hurricane-proof floor to ceiling velvet curtains to drape across snooker-table sized sash windows.
It’s chic, it’s stylish and it wouldn’t look out of place in a magazine. This is only phase one. Following the donation of the building by Archbishop Eamon Martin to the seminary, a huge amount of work has gone into getting it to the stunning standard it’s now at.
Fundraising for the refurbishment of the 100-year-old building, which was in poor condition after it was vacated a number of years ago, was completed with the help of the Family of Nazareth foundation, a Cork-based charity established in 2002, which supports New Evangelisation in the Catholic Church.
Thanks to this, phase one was completed in September and planning permission has already been granted for an extension that will include additional accommodation, a bigger library and study area for the Redemptoris Mater.
St John Paul II, who opened the first of these new seminaries in 1987, gave it the same Mother of our Redeemer (Redemptoris Mater in Latin), which was his favourite title of the Virgin Mary.
Now there are 113 such Redemptoris Mater seminaries throughout the world and about 2300 priests worldwide have been ordained for different dioceses from them.
It is here, in this beautiful, tranquil space in Dundalk where rector Fr Giuseppe Pollio from Naples, Italy and vice rector Fr Neil Xavier O’Donoghue from Cork preside over the young people who have made the decision to seek a religious life.
The Italian priest explains the aesthetic of the decor, reveals how colours, materials, were carefully chosen ‘with the purpose of helping people to feel welcome here’
Fr Giuseppe speaks fluent English, never struggling for a word or phrase, contemplating the questions for a short time before giving fulsome and thought-provoking answers. It is Fr Neil who has helped arrange the visit and assists when this reporter looks puzzled by something his colleague has said. He smooths over the gaps in my knowledge with gentle ease.
Two things to establish before going any further. The first is that the seminary was founded in 2012 by Cardinal Sean Brady to form priests for what is called the New Evangelisation which makes a key distinction from tradition: these priests will be both diocesan and missionary. And that’s why most of this group in Dundalk, whose average age is 25, have come eight countries, including the United States.
There is one from Ireland at present. Missionary work, ministering to people in any country in the world, is at the heart of the ethos here. In fact, Fr Neil was trained in Newark, New Jersey - ‘we are able to be sent anywhere’.
The second thing is how the Redemptoris Mater fits into what the Catholic Church calls the ‘Neocatechumenal Way’. This has been evident in parish level in the Armagh Archdiocese for the past 11 years, and in Ireland for 35 years. This school of thought came after Vatican II and it aims to help parishioners ‘ to discover more deeply the treasures of their baptism and to live as Christians in today’s society’.
As Fr Giuseppe said, these seminarians are taught how to ground their faith in today’s ‘secular, relative’ society. ‘We have a long formation process. We need to form a person for them to take on fully the responsibility and to be grounded in realism’.
It can take up to eight years from the beginning to ordination. In 2014, Fr Maciej Zacharek, who is originally from Poland, became the first seminarian to be ordained from the Dundalk Redemptoris Mater. He is now serving in Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Drogheda.
The young men live in the Dundalk house, but their academic studies are carried out in Maynooth. They attend there five days a week and while in Dundalk, they are instructed in ‘discernment’ to, as Fr Giuseppe explains, ‘understand the problems and challenges and help them to sit down with anyone and relate, to know how to help, to respect the dignity of humans’.
A typical day starts at 5.45am and there is an hour of prayer from 6.15am, followed by
WE WANT MEN WHO ARE TOTALLY DEDICAT ED TO CHRIST AND ARE ABLE TO GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND LOOK FOR LOST SHEEP, WHERE EVER THE LORD WANTS THEM TO BE SENT. OF COURSE WE HOPE FOR AN INCREASE IN VOCATIONS. - FR GIUSEPPE POLLIO, RECTOR, REDEMPTORIS MATER, DUNDALK
breakfast. After that, they travel to Maynooth for their academic studies and return to the house for lunch.
There is a brief time for rest and then study and at 6pm, there is a celebration of the Eucharist, followed by dinner and afterwards, time for reflection or study.
The seminarians are drawn mostly from families with strong Catholic backgrounds, who have already been introduced to the Neocatechumenal Way and after five years of study in the seminary, they spend between two and three years completing the missionary part of their formation.
On their downtime, seminarians can go out, have lunch with friends, play sports or, like a couple of them the previous Sunday, climb Croagh Patrick. Like anyone staying in anyone else’s house, they seek permission from Fr Neil or Fr Giuseppe.
Fr Giuseppe explained: ‘ There are 12 seminarians in this house, and the four others are completing their time on the mission with two in Israel, one in London and one in Mozambique.
‘ They return, feeling strengthened from the mission’.
And before they go at all, they are blessed by Archbishop Eamon Martin, who spends time speaking to them individually. ‘He’s very close to this seminary’, said Fr Giuseppe. ‘He gave the Redemptoris Mater this house, which is the only one in Ireland’.
When the seminarians come for ordination, they will be placed under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Armagh and will serve the parishes, but they will also be available, at the discretion of the Armagh Archbishop, to serve as missionaries, both in other parts of Ireland and internationally, allowing the archdiocese to have a new missionary answer to the pope’s call for New Evangalisation.
Towards the end of the visit, I struggle to ask where the Redemptoris Mater fits into the multicoloured, wide spectrum of thought in the Catholic Church.
Before I finish stammering, Fr Neil responds: ‘We are middle of the road - we don’t lean towards any extreme’. It’s good to get that out of the way.
And the future of the Redemptoris Mater? ‘We want men who are totally dedicated to Christ and are able to go out into the world and look for the lost sheep, where ever the Lord wants them to be sent.
‘Of course, we hope for an increase in vocations. We hope that we can contribute to serve the church to work in common with everyone, this is what we would like’. It’s a beautiful wish.