Ruadhán Jones
Fr Seamus Kelly MSC Personal Profile
In the year that Pope St John Paul II came to Ireland, Fr Seamus Kelly MSC (Missionary of the Sacred Heart) took a plane in a different direction. Two years to the day that he was ordained to the priesthood – 17 December 1979 – Fr Kelly travelled to spread the word in Venezuela, where he established a thriving ministry through the media and retreats.
Before Fr Kelly determined to be 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 in a different direction.
After finishing in his studies in Ireland, Fr Kelly spent a year in Rugby, England, working at an MSC school”
“‘I was sick and you visited me, I was homeless and you helped me’ (Mt 25:31-43) – that parable convinced me that I should help other people in their needs,” Fr Kelly tells The Irish Catholic. “A priest gave a talk – it was a Sacred Heart college in Carrignavar – and I thought I’d try it. So I went to the seminary, and thank God I got through it and was ordained in 1977.”
After finishing in his studies in Ireland, Fr Kelly spent a year in Rugby, England, working at an MSC school. Then, he spent a further year studying Spanish in Spain before finally setting out on what was to become his life’s mission.
Priesthood
“It was in December 1979, the same day of my ordination to the priesthood, 17 December 79, that I arrived in Venezuela,” says Fr Kelly. “I was there until 2016 and I enjoyed the time. We all worked in the parishes and then I worked in vocations, going into schools to get young men to join us. It was a very enriching time for myself.
“After that I started giving a lot of retreats throughout Latin America. I went to different countries where I was asked to preach. I started a radio station, called Lumen (2000), it was a station that was there before us. It wasn’t working so we took it on board and got it working and it continues to this day, thank God.”
Back in Ireland, Fr Seamus is active on Instagram and is constantly trying to improve his grasp of social media”
Fr Seamus modest description of his work doesn’t do it the full justice. For more than 15 years, he ran weekly programs 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. Back in Ireland, Fr Seamus is active on Instagram and is constantly trying to improve his grasp of social media.
A true knowledge
“I think it’s very important,” he says. “I mean, you look at media today, especially now with Covid-19, it’s a way that we can reach out with people. They’re all involved today with this medium. The radio station, I was a co-ordinator for it. It was an uplifting ministry and the media today, we have to use it. You’re involved with The Irish Catholic, I think that’s very important as well, give people a true knowledge of what’s happening in the world around us. The radio station helped me in getting involved in my ministry.”
Fr Seamus returned to Ireland in 2016, finding it, as many missionaries do, much changed. He works as a chaplain to a home for the elderly and helps out in his MSC parish in Cork. He believes that Ireland is similar to Venezuela when he first arrived.
“Ireland’s a very different situation today than when I was growing up,” Fr Seamus says. “I suppose it’s getting a bit like in South America where we were. People would turn up for marriages and weddings, there’s not as much fervour as there was before. But still there’s good, there are a lot of people with great faith here in Ireland and I must say I find it good. When I’m here, I help out with the parish on Western Road in Cork at weekends – I find that very good as well.”
Though he has been back in Ireland for four years, Fr Seamus’ heart remains with the people of Venezuela.
“I found it strange to be back in Ireland, but I’m hoping to get back to Venezuela again in the near future,” he says. “My heart is there, I would love to go back to Venezuela to the poor and the people I knew. Hopefully please God, we’ll see how things go. We’re a missionary group there, we do the work that we can, our priests are still involved but it’s a situation that is difficult today. The whole thing has changed because of poverty and the political situation in the country. It has completely changed everything.
Fr Seamus feels very strongly about the plight of the people in Venezuela, where the disastrous presidency of Hugo Chavez up to 2012 has affected the country badly.
It’s a very upset and unstable society, the majority of people are living in poverty, 4 and half million people have left the country”
“It changed a little bit at the beginning, when I first arrived,” he continues. “It was a very prosperous country when I arrived, a very rich country. But then politically, it was taken over by Hugo Chavez, he got in on a promise of helping the poor. But he became a communist ideologue and there was a lot of destroying, trying to get rid of the old structures. He was involved very much with Cuba. He really left the country in a different state today. It’s a very upset and unstable society, the majority of people are living in poverty, 4 and half million people have left the country. It’s a very difficult political situation today.
“I still keep in contact, I try and help in any way I can. As missionaries, we’re involved in two parishes, three in Caracas, one in Maracaibo, we have a formation house for our students. Hopefully I will be able to get back again to the work I was doing,” Fr Seamus finishes.