After a restoration project that cost €1.8m, a Northern Ireland retreat centre, run by the Passionists, has reopened as a centre for human development.Tobar Mhuire in Crossgar, Co. Down, which the order that four years ago was under consideration fr closure, now has accommodation for thirty people for residential retreats.
It has also been equipped with extensive conference facilities and counselling rooms.
Two hundred people attended the relaunch of the centre, including Bishop Donal McKeown of Down & Connor, Passionist provincial, Fr. Pat Duffy, c.p., and representatives of political parties and civic groups.
Fr John Friel, c.p., superior at Tobar Mhuire, said the Passionists want the facility availed of by “people of faith and no faith who are in search of meaning.”
Fr John said that there is a need for spiritual renewal in the face of “rising secularism and, within the Catholic faith, the abuse scandals,” and the Passionists want Tobar Mhuire to “play its full part” in that.
He said that one of the purposes for which the centre was intended is to further interest in Celtic spirituality.
Its conference facilities, which sit in a 25 hectare, partly wooded site, will be available for hire by businesses and other organisations, Fr Friel added, while the retreat facilities would be opened to other denominations and those who feel alienated from religion.
“We have a solid commitment to work with groups who, either through life choices or circumstances, have traditionally felt excluded from the Church and see Christianity as something of a cold house or irrelevant,” he said.
After they acquired Tobar Mhuire in 1950, the Passionists moved their juniorate, a second level school for boys interested in the religious life, to Crossgar from Belfast.
This school flourished for nearly thirty years and at its peak, was educating more than fifty students.
Later, it served as a novitiate for the Order.