When our Columban leader Fr Tommy Murphy and the present General Council was elected in 2006, they resided in Dublin, Ireland. They made a decision to transfer Columban headquarters to Hong Kong not long after their term of office began.
Their move to Hong Kong was in response to the changing situation both within the Columban Society itself and the mission countries in which Columbans work. Most of our mission countries are on the Pacific Rim of the world: Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Chile, Peru and the United States of America. Pakistan, Ireland and Britain are the only ones not situated there. The General Council believed it was necessary to live in the area where most of our mission work was happening. It allows them to travel less distance and for better or worse, be closer to the action.
The other reason has to do with our Columban Mission Society itself. Initially the priests were predominantly Irish, therefore the Irish culture in its many variations was the culture of the Columban Society. When Australians, New Zealanders, British and Americans joined, the culture broadened out somewhat but many of these came from an Irish background. That homogeneity has changed. We are rapidly becoming a multicultural, multilingual and multinational society of missionary priests. The Columban sisters are on the same trajectory as ourselves.
Now Columban priests come from Korea, the Philippines, Fiji, Tonga, Peru and Chile. English is not the only common language in the Columban Society. The cultural differences between us are varied even though we have our Catholic faith in common; the cultural expressions of Catholicism in Peru is vastly different from that of Korea or Fiji.
Add the Columban Lay Missionary Program with lay missionaries from many of the same countries, and the character of the Society expanded to incorporate lay people going on mission in the name of the Columbans. These changes reveal a new dynamic of priest and lay, of male and female all working together to proclaim God’s Good News revealed in Jesus.
How do we deal with this? Many people in Australia, the country with which I am most familiar, are finding the importation of priests from Nigeria and different parts of India into their parishes confusing and difficult because the priests do not know our culture, and we do not understand their culture or how they view themselves as priests; therefore everybody struggles to some degree.
We are all culturally conditioned and it takes a determined effort to stand in another’s shoes and try to see the world through their eyes. So the issues inside our Society are similar to the issues in Catholic Church society – to what extent can we understand another culture in which Catholic values are quite different; how do we respect their values and yet expect change on their part as well as on our own because it cannot be just one way?
Fr Noel Connolly is engaged in seminars on this new experience of a multicultural Church in Australia. This is our new reality and an exciting time regardless of the prophets of doom who say it is all over for the Catholic Church. No, it is not all over, it is a new phase in our Church that needs patience and understanding and a determination to be a part of something new.
Fr Gary Walker
director@columban.org.au
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