Bringing the heart of Christ to all nations

From Covid to Malaria, authoritarian Venezuela to struggling South Sudan, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart continue to educate and feed the needy, writes Chai Brady

The life of a missionary is filled with new experiences and challenges but having a good humour and the ability to laugh at yourself is one of the key aspects to a successful ministry, according to two Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.

The presence of God and Church in all places has given Fr Alan Neville MSC a sense of belonging wherever he found himself, whether that be South Africa, Venezuela or South Sudan where he is currently based, even when things get tough.

“No matter where you are, whether you’re working with homeless people in South Africa or the parish we had in Venezuela which was a very poor parish in Caracas, there’s loads of challenges but you’re with the people and God is already there,” Fr Neville told The Irish Catholic.

“There’s none of this thing of you bringing God to anyone. The stuff we consider challenging, that’s daily life for them, they are just getting on with it and they’re peaceful enough and graceful enough to allow you to journey with them and sometimes things can be a little bit tricky.”

Despite the struggle communities face, “there’s a real sense of solidarity in the churches and the communities I’ve been. To be part of that for me is a special grace,” he said.

“You know you belong there even though there is a different language, the weather is entirely different, all the culture is very different, it’s still the same Church so wherever you go you have that sense you belong.”

Currently Fr Neville (46) is a chaplain in Loreto Rumbek which was founded by the Loreto Sisters. He has been there since November 2020.

They are based among the majority ethnic group, the Dinka people, and the region is more stable than many other parts of the country.

Peace

Despite a new peace agreement and coalition government, South Sudan continues to be racked by insecurity. Armed violence in the country remains persistently high and shows little sign of abating according to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, an academic institution within the US Department of Defence, in a September 2021 report.

Violence is a key driver behind the extraordinary levels of forced displacement. More than a third of the population, an estimated four million, are displaced.

The centre stated that the majority of these are refugees and the displaced typically find refuge within their own country. This has contributed to South Sudan’s notorious distinction of having a greater share of its citizens living as refugees than any other country in Africa.

For Fr Neville, one of their biggest concerns is not violence, but disease. He says they are still being “hammered” by Malaria, which continues to be a much bigger issue than Covid – although the respiratory virus it is still a concern.

“Our big challenge here now is Malaria but we’re beginning to see a couple more cases of Covid whereas before we really didn’t see any because every place here is quite isolated. It’s very difficult to get around,” Fr Neville said, “If people aren’t travelling the chances of transmission of Covid are low whereas now there are more cases of that happening. We’re keeping an eye on that and just making sure the girls get through their studies. That’s where we are, you focus on what your priority is and for us that’s the priority.”

Fr Neville added this is particularly important as the level of secondary school attendance among girls in South Sudan is low.

“Here we’re really encouraging it… it [the school] is not unique, but it’s one of the few and it does amazing work in supporting young girls to go on with further education and avoid early childhood marriage which is a big thing,” he said.

They have a primary school, secondary school and a clinic in their compound, which has continued to care for the local community, all established by the Loreto Sisters. The head of the Loreto schools in Rumbek is Sr Orla Treacy IBVM, an Irish sister from Bray.

Vaccination

Fr Neville says their staff were fortunate to be vaccinated quite quickly. “When they brought vaccines here the leadership in the school were saying we really need to get people vaccinated. We encouraged the staff, which includes teachers, people working in our clinic and the people working on our agricultural project,” he explained.

“We went and got our vaccines with them, so once they saw us getting the vaccines they came as well.”

Fr Neville describes vaccination as an “issue of global solidarity”, as there is a need to get as many people vaccinated as possible worldwide.

“We are seeing signs of solidarity and I think that is something to celebrate and encourage but we really need to see more of it because this is a pandemic that knows no borders, it really disregards any sense of citizenship and there is this sense now that as a people we need to stand together. It’s happening, very slowly, but at least it’s happening.”

Fr Neville grew up in Cork. He was a reader and altar server in church but was not “the most engaged Christian”. Plans for a life in business led him to a commerce degree in University College Cork. He decided against the course after a year and worked with homelessness charity Simon in Dublin before returning to Cork and training to become a social worker.

However, the question of becoming a priest was always there. “At the back of it all I was still considering the possibility of joining the MSCs, they were my local parish, I was an altar server there and a reader,” Fr Neville said.

“They were really good guys, a good sense of humour, it was terrible sense of humour, but a lovely sense of humour too, they used to crack all of these corny jokes. There was a warmth and humour there. All of the time it was at the back of my mind that this was a good idea, it was there constantly.”

Social worker

After a while, before becoming a social worker, he decided to find out for definite whether the priesthood was for him, “if it works out great, and if it doesn’t that’s ok, but I didn’t want to be 46 years of age staring out of a window of an office thinking of what might have happened,” Fr Neville said. He took the plunge at 25 and has been posted around the world, including, South Africa, England, Venezuela and now South Sudan, he also served as vocations director for the order.

He said: “As far as we know we’re the only congregation that has the need for a sense of humour in our constitutions. We have it enshrined in our constitution which for me was a bit of a clincher because I think that’s really important. Plenty of dad jokes. It’s an approach to life, I really like it.”

Laugh

Another MSC priest, Fr Seamus Kelly, who came back to Ireland several years ago from Venezuela after spending 35 years ministering there, reiterated the importance of a sense of humour in the order despite the many challenges a missionary faces.

“You have to be able to laugh at yourself,” Fr Kelly said. “You make mistakes and you get up and you keep going, it’s part of our charism, in our constitution that governs our order. We are a family of spirit but we should also have a sense of humour which is very important, to get up and keep going.”

It was two years to the day after Fr Kelly was ordained that he was sent to Venezuela, on December 17, 1979.

Before Fr Kelly became a priest, he thought he wanted to be a veterinarian. He attended secondary school at the Sacred Heart College, Carrignavar, Co. Cork. Here, he felt himself drawn towards the priesthood.

Although Fr Kelly returned to Ireland in 2016 and is now based in an MSC parish in Cork, he said he would like to return to Venezuela as the situation for the poor is worsening.

“People are living in dire poverty, their salary doesn’t give them enough to eat – those who have jobs, more than four million have left the country, especially the young people. When they graduate in any sphere of life, there’s no jobs for them,” he told The Irish Catholic.

“A friend of mine who became a doctor recently said there is no work for him in Venezuela, he would get no pay for it. He has gone off to the United States to get a job there. They have to learn the language of course so it’s not easy.”

The political situation over the past few decades has not helped the situation, with Fr Kelly saying this is due to the administrations under Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro.

“Since Maduro has come in, he has reinforced the ideology of communism and land was confiscated, all the rich people and those who were experts in oil companies, they were against them and they have all left. Even though Venezuela is oil rich, it’s not being put to use for the good of the poor people, so that’s the situation,” according to Fr Kelly.

“When I went out there first in 1979 it was one of the richest countries because of the oil but now it’s way down the line. It’s a very hard time for all Venezuelans. Family life has been hit strongly, many of them have left. Recently a family of three, they left for Santiago, Chile, leaving everything they had at home in Venezuela. People in other countries now are tired of so many Venezuelans coming in and getting the jobs from them. Even though they leave the country in a migrant situation it is so difficult.”

The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart was founded in 1854 by Fr Jules Chevalier, a French priest. This happened in Issoudun, a town in the middle of France in the Diocese of Bourges. He founded it to help the needy and to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart.

The missionaries in Venezuela have been there for more than 50 years. Fr Kelly said: “They decided to bring that love of Christ to everyone in dire need and today it’s more or less via the social aspect, trying to get food for them, giving out food parcels. Anything we get from overseas, money, we use it to buy food for them, medicines, because you can’t buy them in Venezuela. The poor people can’t get them so it’s really handouts we’re working with at the moment. We’re trying to continue doing the best we can.”

Sacraments

“Those who come to the church, we help them with the sacraments. You also have to talk about evangelisation there, what you’re doing really in helping with their needs… I suppose that is evangelisation too, showing the mercy and love of Christ. We’re a congregation of nearly 2,000 missionaries worldwide in the five continents, in Venezuela we’re only 12 at the moment and it’s a very hard situation for them.”

Fr Kelly said it has been saddening to watch the situation get worse and there are very few signs of a political solution. “You just have to pray and hope for a miracle and it’s hard to accept it because we were in Venezuela when things were going good and the economy was good and people had enough to eat. At the moment we’re in the situation of getting help from overseas,” he said.

Fr Kelly restarted a radio station that already existed but wasn’t operational when he was in Venezuela, it was called Lumen. For more than 15 years, he ran weekly programmes on satellite TV, as well as running a radio station that ran 24 hours a day. It covered the west of the country with a potential listenership of six million people.

“We got funds from overseas and we got the radio moving and it’s a great source of outreach,” Fr Kelly said. “At the moment now it’s very difficult because you haven’t the funds to keep it going if anything breaks down. It’s still going a small bit but not as much as we would like. Thank God we’re able to use it for the good.

“People can do so much good now with the mass media, social media, we have priests and missionaries throughout the world who are involved in that as well.”

Social media

Back in Ireland, Fr Seamus is active on Instagram and is constantly trying to improve his grasp of social media.

“I’m dabbling a small bit on Instagram, sharing and messaging and then helping people. Maybe posting a teaching on some part of the Bible with the help of the people who are involved with me. I’d be able to put it up on Instagram and people will react to it. It’s a way of evangelising for me,” he explained.

“Social media is a God-given gift and young people are experts on it, the children in primary school, they are born with it now and they’re using iPads and they’re doing great work and they are using it for good.”

Digital evangelisation is a great way to reach young people, according to Fr Kelly, as the Church must go where people are and accompany them.

“Even the secondary schools during the pandemic they were using online resources and studying online for their junior cert and leaving cert and they were able to work from home,” he said, “Young people are the experts, they are the hope of tomorrow and we have to work with them and try to be at their level and you can only be at their level if you are with them in all that they are doing. We can do the best we can and they can see that and they will respond. You have to have great faith in the young people today I think they have a desire to do what is right and I think with a bit of encouragement they always respond.”

Missionaries like Fr Neville and Fr Kelly continue to reach out to educate and bring the Gospel and Sacred Heart to people across the world, whether that be Venezuela or South Sudan, or even by using social media, and of course, a sense of humour never goes awry.