Build Christian-Muslim dialogue and help our missionaries

The new director of World Missions Ireland speaks to Chai Brady about the need for dialogue with Islam and dangers of coronavirus for the developing world

Dialogue between Christians and Muslims is more important than ever, not only in the Middle East but across Europe according to the new director of World Missions Ireland (WMI).

WMI officially announced last week that Fr Michael O’Sullivan of the Missionaries of Africa, commonly known as the White Fathers, is their new national director.

Following more than 25 years of missionary service in the Middle East, Fr O’Sullivan M. Afr. returned to Ireland and was subsequently offered the position by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples in Rome.

Fr O’Sullivan specialises in the Church in the Arab world and has extensive knowledge of Christian-Muslim relations, he told this paper his missionary work has given him valuable insights.

“Obviously my speciality is in the Arab world and dialogue with Muslims. I think this is one area which is very important all over Europe at the moment, whether it be in France or in Germany, but even here in Ireland as we know,” he said.

“I look forward to be able to contribute, to help the Catholic Church have an openness towards Islam and enter into dialogue as well with Muslims.”

Fr O’Sullivan, a fluent French and Arabic speaker, comes originally from Kilrush, Co. Clare. He became more interested in pursuing life as a missionary after his studies at the Cistercian College in Roscrea. From there, he joined the White Fathers of Africa in Templeogue.

Following further studies in Dublin and Switzerland, Fr O’Sullivan completed two years of formation in Algeria, which led to additional theological studies in Toulouse

Ordained in 1991, he spent a year in Algeria at the beginning of the civil war before further studies led him to Rome. Fr Michael has held roles in Sudan, Lebanon, Jerusalem, United Arab Emirates (UAE) to name a few and was last year the local coordinator of the Holy Father’s historic visit to Abu Dhabi.

This extensive experience has brought him to believe that “dialogue is the only way”.

Fr O’Sullivan said: “We are condemned to dialogue if you like, I would almost see that in a positive light. The situation in which we find ourselves: it’s almost like caring for the Earth if you like, if I could use that analogy, in that whether we like it or not we are living with the Earth and we’re called to be friends of the Earth. I would say in a way the same is true of our relationship with Muslims in general.

He said this calls for: “Promoting a discourse of dialogue, of understanding, and I suppose fighting ignorance.”

It’s well known that the number of Christians in the Middle East is continuously decreasing, particularly in certain regions that have been affected by conflict and religious intolerance. Regarding Christian persecution he says it most certainly happening, but there are also several other factors that need to be taken into account in order to fully assess the situation.

Fr O’Sullivan said: “I would say obviously when we’re talking the Middle East, it’s like talking about Europe, we’re talking about vast regions, in some countries things are better than others. If you’re talking about Christians in countries like Syria and Iraq, they have found themselves between civil wars two separate ideas of Islam. Obviously in that way they’re persecuted.”

“I’m a small bit wary of the persecution Christian discourse, which sometimes is a small bit simplistic, if you look at the Syrian, or Iraqi situation at the moment the number of Christians obviously has diminished by 50-60-70% in some regions.” He said that civil war and conflict is a major factor regarding the decrease of Christians in the region.

He added: “In Sudan Christians are discriminated against and persecuted against, I would even say in Egypt, I don’t think it is always in the interest of Christians that we continually cry wolf if you like. Very often political, economic, sociological issues are more profound.”

Founded almost 200 years ago, World Missions Ireland (Pontifical Mission Societies) is the Pope’s official charity for overseas mission. It is part of a global network of 120 offices, many known as Missio, under the coordination of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Rome. Together they are the Holy Father’s chosen instrument for sharing the Gospel and building the Church throughout the world by helping everyone in need – regardless of their background or belief.

One of the key focuses is on supporting missionaries abroad who are doing life-saving work. WMI’s financial resources go to Rome, who have the resources to study the requests for funding and to distribute accordingly. Where support is needed most urgently is the “100-dollar question”, according to Fr O’Sullivan, as the work of the Church is global.

He explained: “The needs of countries in Africa, Asia or even in South America are enormous because there you have vibrant churches, you have a lot of young people wanting to become Catholic and very often the structures aren’t very solid so it is there that are contribution is important.

“There are 55 countries in Africa but many of the countries receive funding from Pontifical missions in one way or the other. Particularly in seminaries and in many institutions run by sisters like orphanages.

“Same way as they have been here in Ireland, looking after the disabled, the deaf, the orphans, looking after HIV sufferers, whether they be adults or particularly children.”

In his own experience Fr O’Sullivan said Sudan was a particularly difficult country to work in during his time there.

“I spent seven years in Sudan, obviously Sudan is a difficult country, because you had a civil war going on, I wasn’t in the war region. Since independence in 1954 Sudan has been at war for most of its time under different regimes. At the time I was in the north, but the war was going on in southern Sudan – this was southern Sudan before it became independent.

“Sudan obviously was very challenging, a lot of poverty and a difficult regime as well. As we know many of the countries in Africa suffer from poverty but also suffer from the weight of military regimes.”

Fr O’Sullivan was based in Khartoum where most of the southerners had fled the war in the south and they were living in camps around the desert in Khartoum. He said the refugees were “living in appalling conditions with temperatures of 42-43C”.

“At the moment it’s the hottest time of the year in Sudan with temperatures of up to 45C, very often with no running water or electricity in all this.”

Despite this, he said: “In the Sudanese situation, in our parish in the outskirts of Khartoum, we were providing primary education for up to 1,200 young kids in basically bamboo schools, which was totally funded by the Church. We were also providing a free meal a day of basically lentils or whatever.”

“In my new role, one of my main roles is supporting our missionaries. We support our missionaries on two fronts. First of all through prayer, and we invite the local churches to pray for our missionaries and with Missionary Children we have programmes inviting children to pray for our missionaries,” he said.

“Of course, another very important aspect is through financial support and one of the main sources of financial support is the Mission Sunday collection every year, which is one of the three collections for the universal Church.”

Currently many Catholic institutions are challenged for funding in Ireland, he said, due to a “growing secularisation and I suppose a distancing from the Church”.

“So this is obviously one our biggest challenges, and the fact that we rely solely on the contributions of the faithful.

“Ireland is one of the unique countries where there’s a real separation of Church and State even more of a separation than you would find in so-called secular countries like France where there is no contribution from the state for our religious activities,” he said.

Ireland has made tremendous progress in recovering from the financial crisis in 2008, Fr Michael says, and is one of the most affluent countries in the world despite its size.

Despite this, with the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic which is having a catastrophic global impact, Fr O’Sullivan said that even in Ireland “we see how difficult it is to support our basic hospital and medical services”.

“You can imagine what it’s like in poorer countries where the average salary might be €50-60 per month. That’s why we believe that in next few weeks when the coronavirus hits countries in Africa particularly there will be a lot of requests for help.”

It (coronavirus) will certainly have an impact he said, but at the same time “we know how generous the Irish people are, we’ve seen it before during tragedies whether it be famine, earthquakes, tsunamis, we have seen how particularly generous the Irish people are when they’re called upon. I think as a race we’re extremely generous”.

“I suppose we’re generous because we have known these things ourselves, we have known famine, poverty, ourselves and in that way I am confident that people will respond very positively to appeals for support from poorer countries when we’re out of the thick of this crisis.”

Looking to the future of World Missions Ireland, Fr O’Sullivan says that in the short term one of the changes will be to the organisation’s name. By summer it is expected to be called Missio Ireland.

He says during his time he won’t be “reinventing the wheel”, but hopes to encourage more lay involvement in the promoting missionary work abroad.

There are less and less religious missionaries who are leaving the country but the mission of the Church goes on and I think there are more and more lay people involved in mission awareness and bringing the mission of the Church to the Church in Ireland,” he said.

“I think would be very important and what I would like to see happening during my time would be more lay involvement in raising missionary awareness and this is something that we’re working on at the moment, training teams of lay people in the dioceses, to raise missionary awareness of the situation of the Church and Christians in poorer countries.”

Fr Michael’s appointment, which is renewable after a five-year term, was part of a rigorous nomination process. The appointment was made by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples in Rome after the presentation of a terna (a list) of three candidates by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Apostolic Nunciature.

He succeeds Fr Martin Kelly, who was acting National Director of World Missions Ireland, following the death of Fr John Kilcrann.