Gathering

On Tuesday, 20th November 2001 the Irish Capuchin Franciscan Mission Office played host to a very special and welcome guest.  Friends, supporters and promoters of the Capuchin Missions - and a goodly number of friars - had gathered during the morning and waited expectantly for the guest of honour to arrive.   Her Excellency, President Mary McAleese had agreed to do us all the great honour of officially opening the Capuchin Overseas Mission Heritage Centre.   

Arrival

At noon she stepped out of the presidential car and was warmly greeted by Brs. Peter Rodgers (Provincial), Anthony Boran (Mission Secretary) and Sean Donohoe (Guardian of Church Street) before saying a quick hello to some of the friars and making her way into the Mission Office. 

The Tour

Inside she was brought on a guided tour of the exhibition which is an audio-visual presentation of the overseas missionary history of the Irish Capuchin Franciscan Friars.  Western America, Zambia, South Africa, New Zealand and South Korea adventures were re-told through artefacts, photographs, and DVD and IT interfaces.  

Br. Anthony welcomes the president

Your Excellency, it is my privilege as Mission Secretary of the Irish Capuchin Province to welcome you here today. I welcome you on behalf of our Provincial, Fr. Peter Rodgers, the friars, sisters, lay missionaries of past years, our staff and our fundraisers - the Promoters of the Seraphic Mass Association and all those who keep mission collection boxes. We were delighted when you graciously agreed to open our new Capuchin Overseas Mission Heritage Centre.

We are honoured that you have taken time out from your heavy work schedule to be with us. Your presence here, on this occasion, honours our missionaries — all those Irish men and women who have worked so selflessly for the poor and disadvantaged peoples of Africa over the long years. Your recent visit to Uganda witnessed to your appreciation of their efforts. On your visits overseas you represent our country with dignity and distinction. You are an ambassador par excellence. And we are very proud of you.

I speak for all of us when I say that your message of sympathy to President Bush and the American people on September 11^th last - that dark day in human history - was one that touched deep wellsprings of compassion and emotion.

President McAleese's Address

Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo i bhur mease inniú. Ba mhaith horn mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl daoibh as ucht bhur bhfáilte chaoin.

I am delighted to have this opportunity to be here with you today and to open this Exhibition Centre for the Capuchin Franciscan Order. My thanks to Fr. Peter Rodgers, Minister Provincial of the Order for the kind invitation which allows me to share your memories of missionary work with all of you.

In Áras an Uachtaráin, we have a wonderful collection of bound copies of the Capuchin Annuals dating back to the 1930s. They took me on a journey back to often forgotten times, to very different days in Ireland, very different lifestyles through the wealth of stories and old photos they contained. In particular they give a real insight to what the life for a Capuchin was like both at home and on the missions. I was intrigued by accounts of the missionaries' work abroad. The 1932 Annual has an article by the Rev. M. Slattery from Cork entitled "My Travels in Equatorial Africa" in which he tells of the many hardships those great adventurers encountered. He tells us

" They are happy despite the fevers, climate, infinite obstacles, poverty, and other hardships. You may see them day after day trekking from village, reproving, guiding, instructing: all the time the African sun is beating down upon them, but all the time they are still happy for nobody serves Christ with such infinite sacrifice and is not filled with the mystic joys of religion "

A proud tradition of missionary work stretches back almost one hundred years, since the first friars went-to North America and this exhibition centre represents a fitting reminder and formal recognition of the work that has been undertaken by the Capuchin friars across the developing world, in such far-away places as Cape Town, Zambia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, New Zealand and more recently to parts of South Korea. It is a celebration of the enormous contribution made by the Capuchin friars to the growth of the Catholic Church overseas and to the development of the poorest peoples in the world. It is a story shared with religious and lay men and women, a remarkable story of very remarkable people.

For many generations, countless numbers of your community have freely volunteered their help to the poorest, most neglected and overlooked of the world's huge family. That outreach to strangers brought them to countries and cultures far from home and they faced huge challenges from the landscape, the climate, the languages, the customs, the sheer scale of the problems faced by those they made their friends and their care.

Your belief in community participation in projects encouraged self-help whether in schools or hospital building. You worked in partnership with local communities building up their capacity to cope, giving them the reassurance of skills and financial assistance. Resources were always scarce and the cost of building, staff and salaries were borne by the Capuchins. Long before the international development agencies spoke of the doctrine of integrated development, the Capuchin Fathers were already doing it.

There is a long litany of achievements which bear witness to the commitment, dedication and dogged determination of the missionary Capuchins. The Sichili Mission in the Western Province of Zambia provides a 120 - bed hospital, a leper village, home craft centre, boarding school for primary school girls and an orphanage. In Ethiopia in this year alone, the Capuchin Franciscan Order with the support of Ireland Aid are involved in the construction of a bridge with check-dams in Addis Alem in the Mahara Region greatly improving access to markets, schools and to clinics for the people in the area. In Wolaita, under the Ireland Aid NGO Co-Financing Scheme, the Order has assisted in the construction of a centre to allow the local community to organise social and cultural activities for the local people. All necessary, worthwhile projects and only a flavour of the full extent of what you have done, are still doing in the cause of others and the way that you do it - focusing on developing the ability to respond to their own needs - not just a hand out but rather a hand up. In striving to help communities in developing countries to participate fully and effectively in society, your Order has provided men and women with the education and training necessary to meet future challenges with a new confidence in their own abilities.

Some of your missionaries have paid the ultimate price, losing their lives through disease, illness and injury. On days such as this we are given an opportunity to reflect on those exemplary people, and all the wonderful people both religious and lay who left their homes and countries, often not knowing if they would return again, so as to relieve pain and suffering in strange and distant lands. We owe them a great debt of gratitude and our unending respect for what they have done, what they still do today. It was a great privilege for me to be able to celebrate their ambassadorship for a caring Ireland on a recent visit to Uganda and Kenya. There I visited a large number of projects which are life sustaining, life enhancing, comforting, hope bringing, capacity building and which only exist because Irish missionaries are there to make them happen. Each missionary can tell his or her own unique story and many of them are the stories of risk takers, innovators, ingenious lateral thinkers, men and women of enormous energy and talent and flexibility to whom the job was and is more important than thanks or recognition or payment.

And of course many have become better known for decidedly non-spiritual activities. I gather Fr. Jude McKenna a former boxer for Ireland, bom in Ballymoney, Co. Antrim became known and respected as Fr. Judo for the many years he spent dedicated to introducing judo as a sport to Zambia and managing the Zambian national judo team. Just one example of many ways in which the Capuchins and Irish missionaries have helped to change life in their adopted countries for the better.

I congratulate you on what you have achieved through the years. You are entitled to look back with pride on a job well done. Your work has helped keep the Irish people's caring conscience educated about its responsibilities to the world's poor. You have brought the name of Ireland to many parts of that world and you have made that name a byword for generosity, kindness and compassion. I wish you every continued success in all that you do in the years ahead. I am delighted to declare this Exhibition Centre officially open.

Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.

Br. Peter responds to the President's Address

A Shoilse, my very dear friends,

We are often asked by people: what is the difference between you Capuchins and the Friars Minor, or the Conventuals - aren't you all Franciscans, living the same Rule, following the same Gospel?  And we are - or trying to.  The difference is in the way we do it; the difference is in our story - the people, he events, the places that have made us who we are.

One of the chapters in the story of the Irish Capuchins is called: "Bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth."  And today by opening this centre we celebrate and thank all the friars, sisters, brothers, lay women and men who together wrote that particular chapter by bringing the good news of Jesus to the United States, to South Africa, to Zambia, to New Zealand, to South Korea.

I thank all the friars who are here with us today, representing our Capuchin province, and I say a special thanks to so many of you who have given years to overseas missionary work.  The example of your commitment and faith has always been a great source of inspiration and blessing for our province.  A word of gratitude also to those friars who supplied information, items, photos for our record.

I thanks all the sisters and brothers, especially those here with us today, representing the many fine people who worked alongside the friars: the Franciscan Missionaries for Africa, FMDMS, Holy Cross Sisters, Christian Brothers.

I thank all of you lay people who shared your talents and skills with generosity and courage, especially among the people of Zambia.

I say a special word of thanks to the promoters of the Seraphic Mass Association whose loyalty and generosity have enabled us to do the things we did ever since that Association was first formed in 1899.

I thank the Mission Office Staff for their support and hard work at all times.  A special word of thanks to Br. Anthony Boran who put the finishing touches to the Mission Office and to the Exhibition.

I thank Martello Media - Ann Patten, Rob and Mark and her able co-workers and designers - who mounted the exhibition for us.  And I thank Mary Cooney of the Mission Office staff for the trojan work she did in liaising with Martello Media to get the exhibition off the ground.

Finally, it gives me great pleasure to address a special word of thanks to your Excellency, President McAleese.  Your recent visit to Uganda showed your appreciation of the tremendous work done by courageous and generous Irish men and women in that land.  You referred to the Irish missionaries as the "unpaid ambassadors for Ireland", referring, I am sure, to the marvellous ways in which they represented the commitment, the faith, the Christian values, the generosity, the talents, the hard-working spirit of the Irish people. We Capuchins, together with all our collaborators here today, are proud to have been part of that world-wide embassy.

You announced in your inauguration speech just over four years ago this month that the theme of your presidency would be Building Bridges.  And you have certainly done that at home and abroad with that patience, imagination and courage of which you spoke then.  Today you have helped us to celebrate the opening of another bridge, a bridge that links us with almost a century of our history as a Church, as an Order, as a people.  For this we are truly grateful to you.

I thank you for being with us here today and for the inspiration that you are to all of us, at home and abroad.  We are proud to have you as our President.