The Irish Church can be re-energised by welcoming missionaries from
the developing world, an African Church leader has told a conference in
Dublin.Fr Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator SJ, Jesuit Provincial of the East African Province, warned that unless the Church in Ireland is willing to learn from the rapid spread of Catholicism in the global south, Irish Catholicism will inevitably drift into “resentment and nostalgia”.
Giving the opening address at the ‘Mission Today & Tomorrow’ conference on Wednesday, Fr Orobator urged the Church here to embrace partnership with countries once evangelised by Irish missionaries.
“For such former mission territories, Ireland, as well as the rest of Europe, now represents a new mission frontier in the world Church,” he said.
Fr Orobator told the hundreds of Irish missionaries attending the event that in Ireland “the irresistible tsunami of secularisation erodes the capacity of traditional Catholic culture hitherto considered as the primary transmitter of faith”.
“The dwindling missionary capital of the Church in Ireland lies beyond doubt. The question is: Is Ireland ready to harvest the fruits of its missionary labours on its own soil or will the Church simply opt to bear the burden of diminishment with resentment and nostalgia?”
He said that mission does not terminate with the departure of the missionary to a “vaguely remembered homeland recently fallen prey to marauding secularising forces and a Church besmirched by sex abuse scandals”.
“On the contrary, mission progresses to a new stage with the coming of age of mission territories and assumption of responsibility for the mission of the Church by local personnel.
“In practical terms, this new partnership for mission in the world Church places on the Church in the global south the duty of offering suitably qualified personnel and human resources to the Church in Ireland as well as the responsibility of learning to live in and adapt to an unfamiliar culture, just as Irish missionaries did in erstwhile foreign missions,” Fr Orobator said.
“For several centuries successive generations of courageous women and men sailed from the shores of Ireland to various parts of the world as ambassadors of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we speak, the Church in Ireland urgently needs the resuscitating breath of the Church in the south in order to survive and grow.”