The Missionary Society of St Columban was officially approved by Pope Benedict XV on 29 June 1918, the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, and so celebrates its 90th birthday this year. The article below is a preface to the Constitutions and Directory of the Society (1992).

The Missionary Society of St Columban was born from the vision of two young priests whom Providence brought together in 1916. Edward Galvin, on loan to the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, heard from a missionary about the religious situation in China and volunteered to go there himself. Four years later he returned to Ireland to seek the support of the Irish Church.

John Blowick, who had recently been appointed to the faculty of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, had long been haunted by the thought of the multitude of China’s people still untouched by the Gospel. He resigned his Chair of Theology to go to China as a missionary.

The hopes of the two men converged in the vision of a new missionary family in the Church. They found others who embraced their vision and the first Columbans went to China in 1920, to meet the challenges of its language and culture and to share the suffering of its poor.

At first the vision did not extend beyond China. But Christ’s command was ‘Go, make disciples of all the nations’ and gradually the vision widened to the Philippines, Korea, Burma and Japan.

When mainland China was closed to missionaries in the 1950s, the Society responded to the urgent call of Latin America and Columbans went to the poor in the new urban settlements in Lima, Peru, and Santiago de Chile. The Society also responded to the missionary needs of the Church in Fiji. Still more recently we have gone to Pakistan, Taiwan, Brazil, Jamaica and Belize.

The initial vision has also widened in other ways. The Society which originally drew its members from the English-speaking world, now invites to membership young men from all the Churches within which we work. We also welcome and value the cooperation of priest associates and lay missionaries.

In yet other ways the vision has not only expanded, but has deepened. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church in our time is challenging the scandals of structural poverty and spiralling violence with more emphatic insistence on the basic implications of the Gospel. Servants of the Church, we see this concern for justice and peace as central to our apostolate.

Today, a greater appreciation of Kingdom values in the world’s cultures and religions has led us to an increasing awareness of the need to dialogue with peoples of other religions and to promote an authentic inculturation of the Gospel.

For us, as for our founders, the vision has continued to grow. That growth has already found expression in our Chapters of Renewal and is now incorporated in these Constitutions and Directory which preserve and express for us today the vision that captivated Edward Galvin and John Blowick long ago.

+++++

The Society no longer has missions in Belize, Brazil or Jamaica but is involved with Burma (now Myanmar) and China in new ways. It has priest associates – all diocesan priests - from Korea, Myanmar, Peru and the Philippines, including Filipino priests at present in Chile, Pakistan and Peru. Two from Myanmar in Peru did their preparation here. Since the early 1990s the Philippines has welcomed Columban lay missionaries from Britain, Chile, Fiji and Tonga, Ireland, Korea and Peru while lay missionaries have gone from here to Brazil, Britain, Fiji, Ireland, Korea, Pakistan, Peru and Taiwan.