Société des Missions Africaines – Province d’Irlande

né le 15 juillet 1920 à Borris dans le diocèse de Kildare & Leighlin, Irlande membre de la SMA le 30 juin 1940 prêtre le 19 décembre 1943 décédé le 18 juin 2000

1945-1954 préfecture apostolique de Kaduna, Nigeria 1955-1959 diocèse de Kaduna, Nigeria, supérieur régional 1959-1964 diocèse de Jos, supérieur régional 1964-1966 archidiocèse de Kaduna 1967-1988 diocèse de Cordoba, Argentine 1969-1975 : supérieur 1989-1996 Dublin 1996-2000 Wilton, retiré décédé à Blackrock Road, Cork , Irlande, le 18 juin 2000, à l’âge de 79 ans

Thomas Lennon was born in Borris, Co Carlow, in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, on 15 July 1920. He died in St. Theresa’s nursing unit, SMA house, Blackrock Road, Cork, on 18 June 2000.

Thomas (Tom or Tommy) Lennon was one of a family of seven boys and one girl born to Edward and Mary Agnes (neé Prendergast) Lennon, both National teachers. After attending Borris National School, Tommy moved in 1933 to Rockwell College, Cashel, Co Tipperary. He later completed his secondary education at Blackrock College, Co Dublin, obtaining his leaving certificate and matriculating in 1938. During this time he was contemplating a priestly vocation and it was due to the influence of the Holy Ghost Fathers at school that he began to think seriously of Africa. Within his immediate family his brother Paddy was already a priest in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin (of which he was later to become bishop); while his mother had two brothers, Tom and Jim Prendergast, who were both priests in the diocese. During the summer Tommy used to spend a few weeks with his uncleTom, then stationed in Killeigh parish in Offaly, and got to know Michael Carolan SMA, a native of the parish. Though they used to go swimming together and knew each other quite well Tommy thought that Fr. Carolan was on the Chinese Mission and only later learned that he was an SMA.

Early in 1937, Tommy answered an SMA advertisement for Vocations in the Irish Catholic and in September 1938 he found himself in the SMA novitiate and house of philosophy at Kilcolgan, Co Galway. In 1940 he moved on to the Society’s major seminary, at Dromantine, Newry, Co Down, for his theological studies. Tommy was received into the Society on 30 June 1940. He was ordained a priest, with eleven colleagues, in St. Colman’s Cathedral, Newry, by Bishop Mageean, of Down and Connor, on 19 December 1943. He celebrated his first Mass in the Sacred Heart church, Borris, assisted by his brother, Paddy, his uncles, Tom and Jim, and some local priests.

Tommy’s first missionary appointment brought him to the diocese of Kaduna in northern Nigeria where he spent the next twenty-one years in a variety of pastoral and administrative positions. The Catholic presence in northern Nigeria went back to 1907 when three missionaries came to Shendam. The prefecture of Northern Nigeria was erected in 1929 and in 1934 was divided into two jurisdictions, the prefectures of Jos and Kaduna. During Tommy’s first tour of duty, lasting from May 1945 until June 1949, the Prefect Apostolic, John McCarthy, gave him experience in a number of missions, including Kaduna, Kano, Minna, Guni and Zaria. Tommy’s second tour lasted four years, ending in June 1954. During this time he worked with Malachy Gately and Johnny Moorhead in the district of Kachiya, the principal station of which was Kurmin Mazuga. But he spent most of this second tour in Guni, a station founded in 1941 under the patronage of St. Theresa. Among his students in the Guni mission school was the present bishop of Yola, Dr. Christopher Abba.

Tommy’s quiet, impressive personality and his skill as an administrator, won the attention of his confreres during these years and in 1955 when a new Regional Superior (responsible for the welfare of the confreres in Kaduna) had to be elected, Tommy was their choice. He lived in Kaduna until 1959 when his jurisdiction as Regional was extended to all confreres in the North and the regional residence was changed to Kagoro. Tommy was to prove himself an efficient and much loved society superior, combining kindness, calm and wit with an incisive mind. In August 1964, on the expiration of his term, Tommy was summoned home to Ireland to become Director of Vocations for the eastern part of Ireland. However during his vacation he persuaded his superiors to allow him return to Kaduna where he served for a further two years, as parish priest of Christ the King parish, Zaria and councillor to the new Regional, Jim Carroll.

In May 1966, in response to Paul VI’s call for aid to the Church in Latin America, the Province announced its decision to open a new mission in the diocese of Cordoba (Argentina). Tommy was selected to lead the first group of missionaries, six in number. Sailing on 17 February 1967, he was to remain in Argentina until 1988, serving until 1975 as superior of the Fathers. He left a short account of his work in the Province’s ‘House’ journal Link, in the issue for June 1992. But a more extensive account of his immense contribution is to be found in the files of the Provincial archives for that period. In the summer of 1988 Tommy was invalided home to Ireland and after some time in Cork’s Bon Secours hospital, he was assigned to the SMA House in Dublin, which was mainly a house of promotion. He remained there, assisting in the work of promotion, until May 1996 when he retired to the SMA house at Wilton. During the last ten years of his life Tommy suffered a lot from ill-health, but he never complained. The death of his brother, Bishop Patrick Lennon, in a car accident, in January 1990, was a blow. But Tommy tended to take life’s ups and downs in his stride. In the homily delivered at Tommy’s funeral in Wilton, John Quinlan, the Provincial Superior accurately described him in the following phrase: ‘when one thinks of Fr. Tom Lennon one is inevitably forced to think in adjectives – kind, unassuming, generous, patient, cheerful, sociable, wise, compassionate, understanding, a quiet man but a strong man.

He is buried in Wilton cemetery.