Editorial - A universal church
02.06.2010
I visited Columban missionaries in Pakistan in April. Members of what is called the Pakistan Mission Unit came together for several days of meetings in Lahore. The Columban personnel who attended reflect the face of the Catholic Church in the world.
There were five Columban priests from Ireland present, one each from Australia, New Zealand, Peru and Tonga. Also a Filipino associate priest working with the Columbans for six years, and two Filipina long-term lay missionaries. Other members of the Mission Unit were out of the country.
It is a real mix of people from countries where Columbans have worked except for Tonga but Fr Fatu had connections in Fiji.
Fr Patrick McCaffrey who had returned to Pakistan after being out of the country for 20 years said the Church had changed with a lot more local personnel. This is the other reality – the universal Church has a local face of bishops, priests and sisters, not a European face.
In this issue Fr Patrick O’Shea reflects on the mix of peoples in his hometown of Naas in Ireland that has changed it irrevocably.
He finds the same reality in a parish in Lower Hutt, New Zealand where he now lives; an international Catholic community exists there. Catholics are from everywhere and settle anywhere these days. Jesus’ command to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth has been fulfilled because they take their Catholic faith with them.
Fr Gary Walker
TFE@columban.org.au
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