Ruadhán Jones
Some of the 200 religious sisters, brothers and priests who gathered for AMRI’s
AGM, September 28, at which they launched their new five-year plan. The work of Irish religious and missionaries in setting up schools, hospitals and more has been “taken for granted”, warned Fr Brendan Coffey OSB.
Fr Coffey, president of the Association of Leaders of Missionaries and Religious in Ireland (AMRI), said the “wider story” of the good done in Ireland by religious isn’t being shown today.
Irish religious and missionaries “really did drag a whole swathe of the country out of poverty and illiteracy”, Fr Coffey told The Irish Catholic.
Services like hospitals, hospices and schools “wouldn’t have existed without them, they simply wouldn’t have been able to”, he added.
“A lot of work done over the years, particularly by women religious but also by Christian Brothers and Presentation Brothers, has been taken for granted… people took them for granted.”
Fr Coffey’s comments come as AMRI launches its five-year plan to future-proof religious and missionary life in Ireland, at a time when congregations are shrinking.
As part of the plan, AMRI are launching a new communications strategy, with Fr Coffey admitting that “we’re not very good at promoting ourselves”.
“It’s not in the nature of the work” religious and missionaries do to seek publicity or a “pat on the back”, Fr Coffey said.
Read Ruadhan Jones’ more in-depth piece Irish missionaries and religious look to the future in our Comment & Analysis section.