FR NIALL O’BRIEN, 1939-2004

By Fr Seán Coyle

I first met Niall O’Brien on 5 September 1961, the day I entered St Columban’s seminary in Ireland. He was four years ahead of me. Just over a year later the Vatican Council began. It was a time of great excitement in the Church, a time of great change, a time when many shared the hope of Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Council, for a ‘New Pentecost.’ Father Niall was ordained in December 1963, just after the second of the Council’s four sessions and a few months after the death of Pope John.

His Restless Mind

While still a student the young Niall O’Brien was living out something of the spirit ofaggiornamento, ‘updating,’ the Italian word used by many to describe what the Council was about. He was struck too by what Pope John was supposed to have said, ‘We need to open the windows and let some fresh air blow into the Church.’ As a student Niall organized a yearly visit of Malaysians studying medicine in Dublin, Ireland’s capital, to our seminary. Very few of these were Christians. He also organized at least two national gatherings of seminarians, with some from overseas and some Anglicans, at a time when many bishops and others in authority would have grave doubts about this.

However, Niall was a model student in his sense of obedience. In a very quiet way he was a revolutionary but not a rebel. He had great respect for the system he had entered and for those in authority but saw the need for change and that he should be part of that.

New Ways to Preach

This questioning spirit was a characteristic for the rest of his life. It was more than that. He was always looking for new ways to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. In his early years in southern Negros Occidental, the territory the Columbans took over in 1950 and which became the Diocese of Kabankalan in 1988, he became very much involved in the SaMaria movement, something like the Cursillo, which gave men, most of them economically poor, an intensive experience of faith and instruction in the faith over a period of three days. And this was in the Hiligaynon or Ilonggo language. Part of the vision of the Council was that people should hear the Word of God proclaimed in their own language at celebrations of Mass and the sacraments. Latin, still the official language of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the rite to which the vast majority of Catholics belong, was used in all liturgical celebrations before, the vernacular hardly at all.

Mass in Hiligaynon

Father Niall began to draw up services in Hiligaynon for communities that couldn’t have Sunday Mass. He was invited to be part of the commission set up by the bishops of the Ilonggo-speaking dioceses to translate the Mass and the sacraments into that language. Though he was a foreigner, the bishops and others recognized Father Niall’s competence in the language and his passion for enabling people to worship God in that language. He would never accept the widespread description of Filipino languages, which are remarkably complex and sophisticated, as ‘dialects.’ He was chairman of the commission for some time.

Because of his experience of the hardships of people living on haciendas and of the plight of the sacadas, seasonal workers, he helped set up a kibbutz in the mountains of Tabugon, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, in the 1970s. This cooperative was another example of his ability to learn from what was being done elsewhere, in this case modern Israel. The kibbutz is still operating, though he wasn’t directly involved in the running of it in recent years.

Their Arrest

The defining event of his life took place in 1983-84 when he was part of the ‘Negros Nine,’ three priests and six men who were parish workers falsely charged with the murder of Mayor Pablo Sola of Kabankalan and four of his companions. On 5 May 1983 the group were arrested. For eight months the three priests – the others were Australian Columban Fr Brian Gore and Fr Vicente Dangan of the Diocese of Bacolod – were under house arrest, the last part of that being in the Police Constabulary Camp in Bacolod. However, the three priests were not happy being separated from the others and ‘broke out’ of the camp and ‘broke into’ the jail. The late Bishop Antonio Y. Fortich of Bacolod appointed them chaplains there. The priests got lawyer-friends to follow up the cases of many poor prisoners who had been forgotten.

While they’re in Exile

The ‘Negros Nine’ became international figures at this stage and Fathers O’Brien and Gore national heroes in their own countries. It astonished people in Ireland and Australia that the authorities allowed them to be interviewed live on television and radio from their prison cells. After the release of the Nine on 3 July 1984 the two Columbans returned home. While in Ireland Father O’Brien wrote Seeds of Injustice, based on the diary he kept in jail. That was published in Ireland but his second book, Revolution from the Heart, came out in Ireland, the USA and the Philippines where it was launched by Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal, Archbishop of Cebu. Japanese, Korean, German and Spanish translations also appeared and the book is still selling. I’ve met people who told me they cried through this book, which is a theological reflection of the first twenty years of Father Niall in Negros, culminating in the ‘Negros Nine’ experience.

Island of Tears, Island of Hope, followed in 1993. This too is a theological reflection on the experience of the people of Negros Occidental and focuses on the role of the late Bishop Antonio Y. Fortich who died last year just short of his 90th birthday. Father Niall had a great love for this outstanding bishop.

Misyon Magazine

During his break in Ireland after his time in jail the Columbans in the Philippines came up with the idea of a magazine that would highlight the work of Filipino missionaries overseas and at the same time encourage young Filipinos to become Columban missionaries and the people to support them. The co-founders of the Columbans, Father, later Bishop, Edward Galvin and Father John Blowick, started magazines in Ireland, Australia, the USA, and, for a brief period, in Argentina, immediately after the Society was formally established in 1918. They saw this as the most effective way to raise people’s awareness of the missionary life of the Church and to obtain their support for missionaries. These same magazines were to lead many young men, including Father Niall and myself, to join the Columbans.

When Father Niall returned to the Philippines the then Regional Director in the Philippines, Father Paul Cooney, who died last year, asked him to undertake the launching of the magazine. So Misyon first appeared in September-October 1988 under his editorship. He continued as editor till the end of September 2002 when ill-health made it very difficult for him to continue. He had been working from his room in Ireland, where he had been getting treatment for a rare form of anemia, for about 18 months. The last issue he edited was that of January-February 2003. (We work well in advance of publication date.)

Misyon has been a forum for Filipino missionaries of many congregations and societies as well as for lay missionaries and Filipinos working overseas trying to live the Gospel. Like other Columban magazines, it has inspired a number of young people to become missionaries, as letters, emails and articles we receive, can testify.

Like a thief in the night

When he returned to the Philippines in December 2002 he had the idea of launching a pastoral magazine aimed at priests and parish workers. He had already set up a board, after contacting all the bishops of the country, many priests, parish workers and journalists, and was ready to go ahead when he left for Pisa, Italy, in December, a few weeks before the 40th anniversary of his ordination. He was hoping that a new, experimental treatment would help him recover. Sadly, a few days after a fall while trying to get out of his wheelchair, he died on 28 April.

His Love for Art and Books

Father Niall had a special love for Italy and all things Italian. In recent years he had spent part of his vacations looking after small parishes in that country, bringing his mother with him. He spent hours in art galleries there, as he did in the National Gallery in Dublin. The paintings and sculptures of the Great Masters were for him an expression of the beauty of God.

Another love, which we shared, was for the writings of PG Wodehouse, an English author who created what someone called ‘a world before the Fall,’ a world of sheer escapism and delight among people with no social responsibilities whatever. Wodehouse, who had a wonderful way with words, was described by Irish playwright Seán O’Casey as ‘the performing flea of English literature.’ Not long before he left the Philippines for the  last time Father Niall borrowed a collection of stories by PG Wodehouse from me. I told him that he would face the death penalty if he didn’t return the book. He returned it!

But during his time in Bacolod Jail Father Niall had nightmares about the possibility of facing the death penalty, though he was totally innocent. His lifelong opposition to capital punishment was part of his commitment to peace and active non-violence. He helped introduce Pax Christi, an international Catholic peace movement, www.paxchristi.net , to the Philippines in 1995 and served as national chaplain till his death. He was a speaker at a number of international congresses. He found inspiration in the lives of peace activists such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King but for him his work for peace was a demand of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and an expression of his faith.

Since he came back to Bacolod in December 2002 Father Niall often spoke to me of his great admiration for Pope John Paul. They were kindred spirits in many ways, both professional communicators, both men of faith, both men with a strong sense of tradition, and both definitely not rebels, but quiet revolutionaries from the heart.