Spiritans: who are they?
Pierre Maillard came from the Spiritan Seminary in Paris to Louisbourg, Cape Breton, in 1735. He went to work at once among the native people of the island, the Mi'qmaqs. He became the first outsider to master their language and developed a script so that it could be written. When resident missionaries were banned by the British administration, Sunday services continued to be held using the religious handbooks Pierre had written. Baptisms, marriages, and funerals all took place in the absence of their beloved priest when he was arrested and deported to France.
In 1745 Fr. Maillard returned illegally to work with his Mi'qmaq people. After the capture of Louisbourg by the British in 1758, and the deportation of the Acadians, Pierre led the Mi'qmaqs to safety in Miramichi where he succeeded in negotiating a treaty with the British which preserved their right to fish, hunt and gather food in what is now New Brunswick. As recently as this year, the courts have upheld the validity of the treaty.
He died in 1762, the last Catholic priest at that time in Nova Scotia. According to a legend, retold to every generation, bushes bearing beautiful flowers sprang up over his grave in the Anglican cemetery in Halifax. But his real memorial is the vibrant church of the Mi'qmaq people which flourishes to this day.
Anthony Horner and Edward Baur confronted the flourishing slave trade which had been depopulating central Africa for centuries. The hub of this inhumane traffic in people was the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of what is now Tanzania. In 1862, before Stanley, before Livingstone, these two German Spiritans set up a mission on the island to protect, house, feed and educate men, women and children whom they bought in the slave market. Their presence was resented by the slave dealers because it brought the eyes of Europe, especially Germany and England, to this abominable trade in humans. Both sent naval vessels to interrupt the slave ships heading north to the Arabian peninsula and by the 1880s, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Spiritan Mission, the Sultan of Zanzibar agreed to prohibit slavery.
While this fight against slavery was taking place, the Spiritans bought a large tract of land, on the mainland, just opposite Zanzibar, in a place called Bagamoyo. Horner and Baur and their fellow Spiritans built a settlement for redeemed slaves with church, hospital, schools, workshops and plantations. The long avenue of mango trees they planted still leads to the heart of what was once called the Freedom Village. Today a team of Spiritans, all Tanzanian, use the facilities to offer programs which are breathing life into a desperately poor and discouraged local community. Academic and technical education is available for the young of the town of Bagamoyo, health care and counselling services are offered for all. Around the large graveyard where former slaves and German Spiritans alike await the resurrection of the dead, life flourishes. A beacon of hope shines where despair ruled for centuries.
Joseph
Shanahan was a tall, lean, loose limbed man, a true son
of County Tipperary, Ireland. Blessed with great physical strength,
good looks and a wonderful disposition, he took to Southern Nigeria
from the day he arrived in November 1902. From the very start he
admired the Igbo people and they responded in kind.
The mission had been started in 1885 and the Spiritans had endured great suffering and failure with little to show for their efforts. Most had died within a year of arrival. Fr. Lutz created a record by surviving ten years. Only two Spiritans were still alive when Shanahan landed.
Once he had learned to speak the native language, and had come to know the people and their customs, Shanahan came to the conclusion that education was their greatest need. As a youth, his family had placed their hopes in education at a time when most rural Irish believed that agitation and political action provided them with the best opportunity of bettering their lot. And his conviction that education was the key to progress grew even firmer in Nigeria. He directed his missionary efforts into setting up schools in all the towns and villages of the region and when he was appointed Bishop, the first Vicar Apostolic of Southern Nigeria, he directed all the personnel and funds that he could spare into schools and teacher-training colleges. When he retired from Nigeria in 1932, the educational system he began was already well rooted and widespread.
Today the Igbo people are the best educated people in Nigeria, possibly the best in all Africa. In Shanahan's bailiwick there are now nearly 3,000 elementary schools, over 125 secondary schools and teacher training colleges, with a total of nearly 11Ú2 million pupils. The Nigerian government has taken over the operation of what was once the Catholic school system. But Shanahan's constant admonition to his fellow Spiritans, "educate, educate", still inspires Spiritans all around the world to this day.
Jacques Laval never fitted into the mold of 19th Century missionaries who were expected to bring the truth to the poor benighted people of the countries in which they served. These people were to be pitied for the beliefs they held and practices they followed. Light had to be brought to this darkness.
Not according to Jacques Laval. A medical doctor by profession, a
Spiritan priest by
vocation, Jacques arrived in the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in
1841. Ignoring the spiritual needs of the French Colonists who were
well served by priests, sisters and brothers, Laval went to work with
the local populace. He loved this polyglot group from the start. They
were descendants of all the peoples the colonists had brought to this
beautiful Island as slaves or indentured labourers. He came to know
and respect the religious leaders and priests of those who practised
African religions. He met with and cooperated with the imams of the
Muslims, the Hindu priests, the Buddhist monks. Laval became so
revered by people of all religious beliefs that to this day the
anniversary of his death is a national holiday. Christians, Animists,
Buddhists, Shintoists, Hindus and Muslims make a pilgrimage to his
tomb every September 9th.
Raymond Zimmermann's ministry in Mauritius today is in the field of Muslim / Christian / Hindu dialogue and in Ethiopia the Spiritans are actively involved in the training of Coptic seminarians as they prepare for ordination in their ancient church. The example of Jacques Laval has survived the century and a half since he showed the way.
This ability of Maillard, Horner, Baur, Shanahan and Laval to see the Holy Spirit in people who were not of their culture has become part of the Spiritan Heritage.
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