The Cork Mission to Peru celebrates it’s Golden Jubilee. Cork Priest Fr. Tom Duggan – a former World War I Military Chaplain, volunteered for the Latin American mission in the early 1960’s. He died suddenly in Lima while attending Spanish language classes and was buried in that city’s British Military Plot. Soon after he was re-interred in the grounds of the St. James’ Society Mission House. Graveside prayers were led by Bishop Cornelius Lucey who responded to Tom Duggan’s missionary generosity and witness in the face of the needs of Peru’s poorest by establishing the Cork Mission to Peru on St. Patrick’s Day 1965.
That daring initiative will be marked in Trujillo, Peru on March 17th in El Buen Pastor Church, El Porvenir which was the first shanty town mission church they built there. As Kerry Diocese actively and generously supported the Cork & Ross Mission to Peru Fr. Tomás Ó Luanaigh has been invited to represent our Kerry missionary volunteers at the Golden Jubilee Mass of Thanksgiving on Lá ‘le Pádraig in Trujillo’s Buen Pastor Church, on Peru’s Pacific coast.
The first Kerry priests to volunteer were the late Fr. Seán O’Leary, Rathmore and the late Fr. John B. O’Sullivan, Sneem. Four others served in the 1970’s and 1980’s – Fr. Denis Costello, Castleisland, Fr. Pat Murphy, Castletownbere, Fr. Luke Roche, Brosna and Fr. Tomás Ó Luanaigh, Killarney. Sisters from many parishes in Kerry Diocese as members of the Bon Secours and Mercy Orders have served in Trujillo. These are the late Sr. Vincent Mahoney, Castlemaine, Sr. M. Bethany O’Sullivan, Sneem of the Bon Secours Order. Sr. Betty Barry, Abbeydorney, Sr. Mary Leen, Ballybeggan, Sr. Bríd Fitzgerald, Caherdaniel, Sr. Patrice Clifford, Glenbeigh, Sr. Dora Kennedy, Castlegregory, Sr. Teresa and Sr. Imelda Harrington, Eyeries. All served as nurses and catechists together with Sr. Sarah O’Connor of Castlemaine who continues to work as Parish Sister on the Mission.
The Golden Jubilee celebrations will be centred in the Good Shepherd Church which now houses the remains of the late Archdeacon Tom Duggan whose death sparked a tremendous missionary revolution of ministry and service. The generosity of thousands of the faithful back home helped create and sustain a Desert Mission serving hundreds of thousands along Peru’s Pacific Coast into the future.
Moladh go deo le Dia na Glóire.
