Société des Missions Africaines –Province d'Irlande

né le 6 décembre 1899 à Kilkilleen dans le diocèse de Ross, Irlande membre de la SMA le 1er novembre 1918 prêtre le 11 mars 1922 décédé le 29 janvier 1970

1922-1931 responsable du "African Missionary" 1931-1946 Cork, supérieur provincial 1947-1958 Rome, supérieur général 1958-1966 Rome, conseiller général 1966-1970 Irlande, malade décédé à Cork, Irlande, le 29 janvier 1970, à l'âge de 70 ans

Stephen Harrington was born at Kilkilleen, Aughadown, Skibbereen, Co Cork, in the diocese of Ross, on 6 December 1899. He died at St. Joseph's hospital, Mount Desert, Cork, on 29 January 1970.

Stephen studied at the Sacred Heart college, Ballinafad, Co Mayo (19l2 19l4), and at St. Joseph's college, Wilton, Cork (19l4 19l6), before entering the Irish Province's seminary at Blackrock Road, Cork. He was received as a member of the Society on 1 November 19l8. Stephen's class was due for ordination on 29 June 192l, but he was much too young to join them. Among those ordained on that day was his cousin, Jerome Sheehan. Stephen had to wait a further year until he became eligible to benefit from a dispensation from the Holy See which permitted ordination eighteen months before attaining the canonical age. His ordination took place at St. Patrick's college, Thurles, on 11 June 1922. The ordaining prelate was John M. Harty, archbishop of Cashel.

While waiting for priesthood Stephen taught in the seminary, at Blackrock Road, until January 1922, and was then appointed editor of the Province's journal, the African Missionary. After ordination he remained on as editor of the journal until his election as Provincial Superior at the Assembly of 193l. Stephen occupied the position of Provincial Superior from 193l 1937 and, after re election, from 1937 1946 (the Assembly due in 1943 was deferred until after the war). At the 1946 Assembly he was elected vice Provincial but, within a matter of months, he relinquished this for a more senior post when he was elected Superior General at the General Assembly of 1947. He was re elected Superior General in 1952 for a term lasting until the 1958 Assembly, when he was voted a General councillor. On 8 December 1962, Stephen suffered a serious stroke in Rome. Shortly afterwards he resigned from the General council and was brought back to Ireland. He suffered patiently despite being greatly incapacitated, until the time of his death.

Stephen Harrington was an exceptionally brilliant man. Although he never served as a missionary in Africa he was legendary for his knowledge of missionary matters, due no doubt to the close contact he always maintained with his priests, and his long and painstaking tours of the mission-fields. Stephen's accession as Provincial in 193l brought important changes. In the first place it marked the introduction of the 30 Days Ignatian Exercises into the novitiate programme. Secondly, it heralded the equipping of priests with university degrees in response to requests from the missions by bishops who were anxious to develop the educational apostolate. He also had an eye for ecclesiastical degrees in the different branches to meet the needs of seminaries at home and abroad. Between 1932 and 1940 he sent five members of the Province to study in Rome. Finally, Stephen's administration is associated with the construction of a new building at Blackrock Road (1939-1941) which provided badly needed facilities for priests on leave from the missions.

Stephen's tenure as Superior General, resident in Rome, was a time of expansion and change for the Society's many mission-fields (situated in Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Dahomey, Nigeria, Egypt and the U.S.A.). There was scarcely a jurisdiction which did not have its geographical boundaries and status changed. Existing territories were divided, new jurisdictions were created and territory which the Society could no longer supply (because of lack of resources) was ceded to other congregations. In 1950 the hierarchy was erected in Ghana and Nigeria; the turn of Dahomey and Togo came in 1955. During his second term as Superior General the first African bishops were nominated - Mgrs. Gantin, Aggey and Amissah. Stephen, in his capacity as Superior General, was actively involved in all these developments.

Stephen was particularly interested in missionary technique and composed a document entitled : 'Our Missions' (1944), which he hoped would form the basis for the conduct of S.M.A. ministry into the future. He visited the missions on several occasions, holding meetings with bishops and Society superiors at which his 'paper' was discussed and analyzed. During his many tours of the missions, too, he kept detailed diaries, which are now preserved in the Provincial archives at Blackrock. He had exceptional powers of observation, recording not only the broad outlines of the ministry conducted by S.M.A. missionaries, but also the nuances and subtleties which were to be found in every parish, Christians community, or school he visited. It was no wonder that when missionaries visited him in his office at Cork, perhaps years later, he was able to ask such informed questions about their work. It was no wonder too that his views on the conduct of the missionary apostolate were so well-developed. Though devoting most of his attention and energy to the missions, Stephen also found time to expand the Society in Europe. With great courage and with confidence in the Society's future he procured the cooperation of the Province of Lyon to extend the Society to Italy, that of the Province of Est (Alsace) to set up the Society in Canada and that of the Irish Province to establish the Society in England. The men directly involved in this expansion of the Society were Frs. Michael Colleran, Eugene Geisser and Michael Walsh.

Stephen was keenly interested in the Society's founder, Bishop Melchior de Marion Bresillac, and sought to have a biography of him published for the centenary in 1956. Although this project did not succeed at the time, he continued to encourage research into the life of the founder. Before his death he read most of a manuscript biography written by Patrick Gantly S.M.A. and enthusiastically approved its publication. The book appeared in 1972 under the title For This Cause (recently revised and re-issued in English and French). In his obituary notice Stephen was described as 'a tall, lathe thin man, with trim body, high forehead, aquiline nose, and jet black hair combed straight back; with restless and piercing eyes that radiated currents of energy as he talked of his favourite themes - dedication, selflessness, and dynamism his summary of a missionary's virtues.' A colleague who worked with him in Rome wrote: 'Stephen was an idealist who saw far into the future, whose vision was always large and who had a horror of haphazard, opportunist and short-term action. He wanted above all to have policies which were planned, which could be implemented progressively and which would bring solid achievements in the long-term.' Stephen was a younger brother of Peter Harrington who was one of the founding members of the Society's American Province and later Provincial of that Province. A nephew, James Murphy, was also a member of the Society. Stephen had a sister and a niece in the O.L.A., Sisters Celerine and Bonaventure.

He is buried in Wilton cemetery.