Mags Gargan Mags Gargan meets the new national director of World Missions Ireland
Antarctic explorer Tom Crean is the most famous son of the village of Annascual in Co. Kerry’s Dingle Penninsula, but fellow native Fr Maurice Hogan SSC, has done his fair share of travelling and pioneering exploration over nearly 50 years as a missionary.
Growing up in a small farming family, Fr Maurice says it was reading the Far East magazine that sparked his call to mission, particularly the story of the Irish Columbans martyred during the Korean War (1950-1953) in the early days of the Communist invasion. “This really made an impression and I had made my mind up by 10 years of age that I would join the Columbans and go on mission,” he says.
Fr Maurice was ordained in December 1965 and was sent overseas the following summer to Japan.
He spent two years concentrating on learning Japanese with four hours of class and four hours of study each day, which he describes as “difficult” and “monotonous”. But it gave him a “very good grounding” and because of that “I am still fluent today even though I am out of Japan for a number of years”.
Once equipped with the language Fr Maurice did some parish work in Yokohama diocese, south of Toyoko, for three years and took a post graduate course in the theology faculty of the Jesuit-run Sophia University.
Languages
He was then sent to Rome to study the Bible at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. “It was regarded as the most difficult course in Rome at the time, partly because of the number of languages you needed to be able to study the Bible properly: Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Latin and the European languages, Italian, German, French and Spanish.”
When it’s suggested this was a lot of languages to take on after two years of studying Japanese, Fr Maurice smiles and says “sometimes you don’t know what you are letting yourself in for, but it’s just as well because you would refuse if you did!”
After three years in Rome, Fr Mauricewent back to Japan for four more years working in parishes and teaching. From his experience he thinks the Irish Church could learn a lot about celebrating faith with a sense of joy from the Oriental Church. “I’ve been to mainland China and it’s amazing to see that, in spite of the restrictive regime they are under, there is still a great joy in the Church and their liturgy is fantastic.
“I was in Beijing and Mass went on for over an hour and nobody cared. Everybody was singing, some of the songs were in Latin, and everyone was joyful. That’s something that we would want to bring back to Ireland. I think because of recent history there is a bit of depression in Church circles, and we could bring back some of that joy. Surely the Good News should be joyful? If the Faith doesn’t bring you the joy or the fullness of life, then who needs it?”
In 1978, Fr Maurice was asked to come back to Ireland to teach in the Columbans’ seminary in Dalgan Park, which led in turn to him teaching for over two decades in Maynooth as the Professor of Sacred Scripture. “One of the professors asked me to teach the Bible in Maynooth because they were short staffed and what I thought was a temporary appointment ended up with me still in Maynooth 25 years later!”
Retirement is an alien concept to most missionaries, so when Fr Maurice reached retirement age in 2008, he jumped at the chance to take a vacancy for an English speaker for the international community in the Cathedral parish in Hong Kong. This came to an end after four years when he had to come home for health reasons. “I had leukemia and needed treatment. But it wasn’t as bad as it sounded and I was very fortunate,” he says.
The role of national director of World Missions Ireland then became available and Fr Maurice was appointed to the role nearly a year ago.
World Missions Ireland, formerly known as the Pontifical Missions Societies, is the official support organisation for the overseas mission of the Catholic Church, promoting prayer, solidarity and fundraising for young churches overseas, particularly through the Mission Sunday collection every October.
“I am learning as I go along and I am fortunate to have very experienced and professional staff,” Fr Maurice says.
“Our focus is on evangelisation as distinct from development, but if somebody needs food we will give them food. People don’t just have material needs but spiritual needs. We believe that Christ fulfils the need for meaning, the need for a sense of direction in life and an answer to the basic questions of life.”
Fr Maurice sees a lot of mission ground in Asia and plans to shine a spotlight in that area in the work of World Missions Ireland. “There’s about 1.5 billion Chinese and there are about 12-15 million Catholics, so there is plenty of work there,” he says.
“Pope Francis says the Church by nature is missionary. Every Christian by virtue of their baptism are missionary. They can’t all go to China but everyone can help in their own way to further the missionary mandate of the Church, as Christ said ‘go to teach all nations’.”