Vale Fr Peter Toohey

Columban Fr Peter Toohey left us to be with Our Lord - who he has served so generously.

Peter was born in Sydney, the fourth of six children. After high school, he entered the Columban seminary and was ordained in July 1963 in St Mary’s Cathedral by Norman Thomas Cardinal Gilroy.

The following year, he travelled to Korea where he began language studies, then worked as an assistant in a number of parishes in Kwangju Archdiocese and took on the role of pastor in Yeongkwang parish in 1969.

In the seminary, Peter quietly went about whatever interested him. He spent many hours in the garden, enjoyed classical music and always signed on for a bushwalk on free days. He was a gentleman who, with a lot of searching, found ways to follow his missionary calling.

 Fathers Kelly, O'Hara, Carey and Toohey, [L-R] before sailing for our missions in Korea. Photo: Missionary Society of St Columban

He returned to Australia in 1970. The Columban mission in Korea was not his way.

He then worked at the Matthew Talbot Hostel for homeless men that was run by the St Vincent de Paul Society in Sydney. He was also chaplain to the Gladesville psychiatric hospital in Sydney. Later, he travelled to Canada to get in touch with Jean Vanier’s L’Arche communities and subsequently helped establish a community in Burwood, a suburb of Sydney. He also worked in the Columban mission in Chile from 1986 to 1989.

On returning to Australia for home leave, he spent some time at the Aboriginal Spiritual Centre, located at Turkey Creek in the Kimberley Region, a remote north-west part of Australia. In 1990, Peter took up an appointment in the Archdiocese of Perth as Chaplain in Aboriginal Ministry, first in Kalgoorlie and then in Perth itself. From the late 90s to 2014, he became the chaplain to three separate prisons in Perth

Peter is always remembered as a person who really loved and cared for everybody but certainly from the viewpoint of the poor and marginalised.

Peter was small in stature but huge in the eyes of those who knew him – huge in a searching faith, in courage, in humility and compassion for all.

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