Recently the Tablet quoted Anthony McClaran, the incoming Chancellor of St Mary’s University as stating that “Catholic universities should be defined by service”. Catholic higher education is “there for all at the service of the community and wider world, and it is distinguished by an ethos that places the development of each individual’s gifts in the context of service and community”. This he continued, “leads to a specific service to the church and to those who will teach and minister within the schools, universities, hospitals and churches”.
On reading this, I look back over 50 years since attending St Mary’s and can only say how true I found the above. It is time for me to say thanks to St Mary’s where I did a year’s Dip.Ed. course starting in September 1970. Little did I realise, 50 years ago, that this study would be the gateway to help lead to a life of community service, mixed with ongoing studies which were in turn chosen because they fed into my passion for social gospel or community service; in other words, to spread the good news of the Gospel of Christ.
After ordination in 1964, I spent 6 happy years in parish work in Motherwell, Scotland. Because I got on well with young people, my parish priest, Fr Tom Winning (later Cardinal Winning), suggested I do the year at St Mary’s teacher training college, as it then was. Winning himself had a great love for the poor and I accompanied him on at least one occasion when challenging the local borough councillors regarding the treatment of people with rent arrears by dysfunctional families whom we had in our deprived area of the city.
When reading the philosophy, sociology and psychology books there at St. Mary’s, I realised how much of this I had already discovered to be true just from the experience of working and visiting homes in our deprived area of Motherwell and Whishaw borough council. It was as if I had seen the movie or acted in the play and was now privileged to read the book in its complexities. Reading, as we would all agree, allows us more time to experience the events and to use our imaginations. Now we were given the language and terminology to express the ill effects of social deprivation and its negative impact psychologically on children’s ability to engage in education. As an example, the child in the class who is worried and preoccupied about a parent’s drinking and violence at home is hardly going to be interested in the causes of conflict leading to the first world war.
Frequently I found myself wondering during that year, how the 18-year-old students doing the longer 3 year diploma course were coping, not having had work experience. Indeed, over the years I witnessed young people, encouraged by parents, choosing to study a course but after a year or two realised that they had made the wrong choice. When Ivan Illich promoted in his “De-schooling Society”, the notion of connecting learning with work experience and spoke of the apprenticeship idea, he realised how entrenched educationalists could be. However, Anthony McClaran is saying something akin to that in calling on Catholic universities, such as St. Mary’s, to promote the Christian wellbeing of society and, with the Church, help to build the Kingdom of God on earth.
Having worked as a religious education teacher, and as a chaplain in secondary schools in Motherwell diocese, I returned to my home city of Derry in 1975. I was appointed as an assistant priest in St Eugene’s Cathedral, Derry, where the civil rights marches began in 1968. I was chaplain to St Joseph’s secondary school in Creggan, the largest Catholic housing estate in the city. The first week I was in that parish I recall being at my desk concluding work for a BA in Social Studies with the Open University. It was a warm autumn day. The window was open. Suddenly, the rattle of a sub machine gun being used close by startled me. I looked out to witness a car slowly crossing the road and crash into a lamppost just twenty yards away. Two plain clothes policemen in the car were shot dead at the traffic lights. This was my first but sadly not my last exposure to violence and death in Derry. I found it strange to watch the masked gunman then speak to an old lady a few yards away. Apparently, he told her she would be ok and said, “Now it is all over, so don’t worry.” There was a deadly silence. What a contrast.
A word about Derry
Derry, more than anywhere else in the north of Ireland, illustrated the problem that became known later as “gerrymandering”. Here was a city of 25% unionist-Protestant ruling the 75% nationalist-Catholic section by an unfair system of voting. To sum up best the unionist situation, I recall reading an interview in one our national newspapers back in the early 60s. The report asked Sir Basil McFarland, the returning Lord Mayor of Derry, how he could as a unionist, possibly justify having by far the largest number of members in the Derry City Council, annually. After all, the report said, you have 25-30% of the population in this area voting unionist. Sir Basil showed no shame or apology in stating, “How else do you expect us to rule” The colonialist in Ulster or worldwide simply believes he or she has a divine right to rule. The civil rights situation was sadly to give way to violence and then the British army got involved. As northern nationalists saw it, it was not just the socioeconomic situation, of having no work, money or decent housing. Now the general policy of unionism was being reinforced by the British armed forces. The 30 year violent conflict that followed produced terrible atrocities both here and in Great Britain.
One does not have to get a degree in social studies to understand the unrest and frustration of the Catholic population. No wonder young men were so easily recruited to the IRA and paramilitary groups, especially after what happened on Bloody Sunday, 1972.
After over three years in the Cathedral parish, I was given six months’ leave to visit and study the emerging Christian communities in the United States and Mexico. These communities impressed me immensely, especially the one at Juarez on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande River. Here lived a very deprived people who amazingly were open to the good news of the Gospel about healing and forgiveness. When I arrived, a large group after an outdoor celebration of Mass began to pray. Soon afterwards, they divided and helped build homes for one another. Prior to that they were living in small temporary cardboard structures. The people received a sense of indeed being loved as children of God and experienced the spirit of Jesus Christ as alive in their very being. It was this message I was later to bring to the prisoners and others who would learn to seek justice by nonviolent means
The Columba community of prayer and reconciliation
On my return from the US, I felt I was being led in prayer to start a basic Christian community. This began when we opened Columba House on 9th June near the city centre. This house was formerly a large Edwardian four story building which had housed RUC (the police) and was bombed and burned in the early 70s.
One of our main missions was to promote justice and peace locally. We visited prisoners weekly for some five years, both in The Maze, known as Longkesh and elsewhere. The good work of counselling families and the thousands who came to us for a listening ear and healing prayer I’m sure contributed greatly towards the hope for peace in those dark days. It was amid the background of that stress that a friend of mine in the University of Ulster invited me to study for a master’s degree in Peace Studies in the early 90s. Again, the motivation and enthusiasm to look at history and politics was driven by my own work experience of war and what real peace would look like. Everything is connected and unless it is all connected, is there any point in study or seeking knowledge in the abstract?
As I look back on my last 56 years as a priest, I think of Columba House, of prayer and reconciliation. I reflect on opening St Anthony’s Retreat Centre in 1986, initially for ex-prisoners, and later for the wider population to experience a place for prayer, silence and peace in the country on the Donegal side of the border. In 2001, the Columba community, now a thriving lay apostolic institute, opened the White Oaks Rehabilitation Centre for those suffering from addiction. Addiction is sadly on the increase in our society. The excellent outcomes from White Oaks are attributable not only to the well qualified staff who carry out the 12 step Hazelden programme, but also to the prayer and ethos of the Columba community who do meditations there. More recently we opened the Celtic Peace Garden to commemorate the values and gifts of the Celtic Saints from the 5th-12th century. Somehow, I connect the above to the courage and inspiration received around that time of my teacher training course in 1971. This was the first time since I left secondary school that I had studied for an external exam outside of the seminary system. To that end, I got a distinction in the diploma largely because I worked so hard, not being at all sure that I would get a pass!
A final remark
Recently I phoned the Vincentian Provincial office in Dublin and found out that many of the great teachers I met back in 1970 have gone to their eternal reward. Among these were Fr Des Beirne and Fr Kevin Rafferty. Fr Noel Travers is still working in a parish in England. They created a place of welcome for all of us away from home. I vividly remember with great gratitude the atmosphere we enjoyed in their sitting room sharing a cup of tea and goodies after Mass on a Saturday morning. I pray that spirit still prevails at St Mary’s, that spirit of St Vincent. The scripture tells us that God does not withdraw his gifts. May this be true of the college, now university, where I and my companions back then felt truly blessed.
Neal Carlin, Columba Community of Prayer and Reconciliation