On Tuesday 29 April, AMRI (the Association of Leaders of Religious and Missionaries of Ireland) will host a gathering of ‘Returned Missionaries’ in Avila Retreat and Conference Centre on Dublin. This event will be mainly social, offering an opportunity to make (or renew) connections and to share stories. Additionally, participants, whether they have returned to Ireland recently or have been back for some time, will be invited to register their interest in further supportive events, or perhaps webinars on topics of importance to them.
The impetus for this event comes from the launch, hosted by AMRI last October, of an important publication (from Routledge Studies in Religion, Taylor & Francis): Retired Missionaries and Faith in a Changing Society by Dr Carmel Gallagher (Emeritus Research Fellow, TUD). The book offers a sociological study of the Irish missionary diaspora.
This publication draws on a series of interviews with female and male Catholic missionaries, who have worked in Asia, Africa and Central and South America, and who have returned to live in Ireland. The chapters provide unique insight into their experiences, exploring how they have navigated life-course changes in the context of changing church and changing societies.
Returned missionaries have several vantage points from which to communicate their understandings, having worked across cultures and encountered some of the most challenging global social problems. Responding to significant changes in the Catholic Church, in Irish society; in their host countries; and, in mission work itself, the lives of religious missionaries offer valuable perspectives on what it is to be Christian in contemporary society.
Retired Missionaries and Faith in a Changing Society suggests that the holistic character of the work of missionaries raises important questions about the different ways of being ethical, religious and acting justly in the world today. Clearly, the wisdom and experience of returned missionaries are rich resources for all who desire and work for a synodal way of being church now.
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