History of the Columban Mission Institute
The Columban Mission Institute is closing in October 2017. This will bring an end to the ‘institutional’ presence of the Columbans in Sydney. Columban priests will continue to live and work here, contributing our missionary perspective to the church and society from other bases. In the following pages, and in subsequent issues of The Far East magazine, the staff of the Columban Mission Institute share some of the highlights of our story.
Over the years, the Columban Mission Institute has changed in response to changing needs:
- St Columbans College opened at North Turramurra in 1959 as a seminary for training young men for missionary priesthood. From then until 2001, over 300 Australian and New Zealand seminarians were formed, of whom 96 were ordained as Columban priests and served in 11 countries around the world, plus some order priests.
- From 1973 the College opened its doors to train religious and laity in the new post-Vatican II understandings of church and mission. In 1979 this became a residential program named the Pacific Mission Institute and from 1992 the Columban Mission Institute. During 20 years, more than 900 people completed the residential programme and hundreds of external students availed of courses on mission.
- In 1997 the Columban Mission Institute formed Centres to respond to the emerging missionary priorities from our Columban global perspective, the Church in China; Christian-Muslim Relations; Peace, Ecology & Justice; and Mission Studies, first at North Turramurra until 2003, then Strathfield until 2014, and then North Sydney.
In each of these phases, the staff of the Columban Mission Institute showed exemplary missionary commitment, having done their job, they moved on. Like Abraham in the book of Genesis, who followed God’s command to leave and go to a new place, like Paul of Tarsus, who founded churches and then handed them on to elders while he went on to other cities, having contributed new ways of being church, the staff of Columban Mission Institute moved on to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ in other ways.
Now it is again time for us to move on. Some of the missionary concerns of the Columban Mission Institute’s Centres have become a regular part of church life; some will be handed over to other church agencies; some that operate through other institutes will continue, and some will inevitably come to an end.
The Columbans will continue the Christian-Muslim apostolate, building on the friendships and reputation we have established over the past 20 years. For this purpose, we will move to the Institute for Mission in Blacktown in the Diocese of Parramatta to make a new beginning.
As we look back, we acknowledge the staff and students of the Columban Mission Institute who have contributed to the mission of the church in Sydney and beyond. We thank the partners who collaborated with us and without whom we would not have been able to achieve so much. We ask God to bless the benefactors whose generosity made it all possible. We look forward in hope to what the future holds.
Columban Fr Patrick McInerney is the Director of the Columban Mission Institute in Sydney and the Coordinator of its Centre for Christian-Muslim Relations.
Related Links
- Read more from The Far East - July 2017
