Société des Missions Africaines – Province d'Irlande
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né le 21 août 1889 à Drimaleaghe décédé le 3 mars 1961 |
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1913-1961 missionnaire au Liberia 1932-1934 préfet apostolique du Liberia décédé à Monrovia, Liberia, le 3 mars 1961, |
Monseigneur John M COLLINS (1889 - 1961)
A Monrovia, le 3 mars 1961, retour à Dieu de Son Excellence Monseigneur John Collins, internonce apostolique et administrateur apostolique du vicariat de Monrovia (Liberia), à l'âge de 72 ans.
John Collins, frère cadet de Michel, ancien conseiller général, naquit à Drimaleaghe, dans le diocèse de Ross (Irlande), en 1889. Il fit toutes ses études dans les maisons de la Société. Il fit le serment en 1911 et fut ordonné prêtre en 1913. En octobre de la même année, il partait pour la préfecture du Liberia, où il va travailler pendant près de 50 ans dans le ministère et les écoles. En 1919, il devenait le visiteur de ses confrères de cette préfecture, et en 1931 pro-préfet. En 1932, il succédait à Mgr Ogé
Très pieux, humble et doux, plein de zèle, Mgr Collins était frugal et très mortifié, s'abstenant totalement d'alcool. Au moment de sa démission, c'était un homme absolument usé par 50 ans de labeur apostolique dans la plus ingrate des missions confiées à notre Société.
Ses funérailles furent un triomphe. La république du Liberia se chargea de tout. Tous les membres du gouvernement, y compris le président Tubman, avaient tenu à y assister. Il était vénéré par toute la population comme un grand ami et un insigne bienfaiteur de la nation. Le prédisent de la république, M. Tubman, prit la parole, louant le vénéré défunt pour son oubli de soi-même, son esprit de sacrifice et surtout sa charité chrétienne. En même temps qu'éloge de la nation, c'était aussi celui de l'Eglise méthodiste dont le président Tubman est un ancien pasteur. Un dernier salut de 17 coups de canon au moment de l'inhumation, et un deuil national de 15 jours fut décrété.
Bishop John M. COLLINS (1889 - 1961)
John Collins was born at Gallows Hill, Leap, Co Cork, in the diocese of Ross, on 21 August 1889. He died, rather unexpectedly, in Monrovia, Liberia, from pneumonia and fever, on 3 March 1961.
John Collins was the eight child of a family of ten. Five of the ten were to enter religion. John was educated in the colleges of the Society in Ireland. He studied at St. Joseph's college, Wilton, Cork (1904-1909), after which he joined the first class to enter the new seminary founded at Blackrock Road, Cork, in September 1909. Before that date Irish students for the Society went to Lyon for their philosophy and theology. John was to spend until 1913 in the Blackrock seminary, during which he attended lectures in philosophy at U.C.C. for two of those years, without taking examinations. It appears that this was the way the seminary solved its difficulties in providing the required philosophical courses in its early years. John took his permanent oath of Society membership on 31 October 1911 and was ordained a priest in St. Joseph's church, Wilton, by Bishop Robert Browne of Cloyne diocese, on 15 June 1913. Ordained with him on that day were Eugene O'Hea and Joseph Crawford.
After ordination John was appointed to the prefecture of Liberia. This was the first territory to be entrusted to the Irish Province on its foundation in 1912, a year before John's ordination. It was to prove one of the most difficult missions in West African. Before the S.M.A. came to Liberia (in 1906) three efforts to set down roots, conducted by other missionary agencies, had failed. The Society's mission had been pioneered by Stephen Kyne with a handful of continental and Irish members. Mgr. Kyne was recalled in 1910 to become superior of the Irish branch (in anticipation of its erection as a Province) and was replaced by an Alsatian, Jean Ogé.
John was a member of the first Irish contingent to reinforce the mission after it became a responsibility of the Irish Province. On 15 October 1913, accompanied by Peter Harrington, Eugene O'Hea and William Shine (who was to die a year later), he set sail for the mission in which he was to spend more years than any other S.M.A. (47 years) and which he was to lead for over 30 years. John arrived in Liberia at a time when efforts to evangelise Monrovia, Liberia's capital, had been abandoned because of strong Protestant opposition and when the main effort was directed towards the evangelisation of the Kru Coast, some 150 miles east of Monrovia. John spent his first tour of duty, of five years (1913-1918), at New Sasstown. These were turbulent years during which the coastal tribes mounted a challenge to the Americo-Liberian ruling elite and civil war ensued.
It was also a period when famine stalked the land, as Kru males, traditionally sailors, were prevented from pursuing their livelihood because of the first world war. The role of the missionaries during this period in protecting their people against undisciplined government soldiery, in negotiating with the government, and in providing food for the starving, was to be long remembered by the Krus and proved crucial to the success of the Church in that region. The Kru people, hitherto indifferent to Christianity and wary of the missionaries, were won over to the Church and the first real roots of Catholicism in Liberia were planted. John played a central role in these events, along with Eugene O'Hea and Mgr. Ogé. It was also during these years that John first showed those qualities which were to thrust him into positions of leadership in the years which lay ahead. In 1919 he found himself appointed by his superiors as 'visitor' of the members (responsible for their spiritual and temporal welfare), a particularly delicate position since tensions existed between Irish and continental S.M.A.'s in Liberia. A continuation of these disagreements would have been damaging for the mission. In the event John steered a prudent course, winning the confidence of all.
Between 1920-1930 the main thrust of mission policy was re-directed towards the development of the Church in the Monrovia region. During this period John remained on in charge of the Kru Coast Church, consolidating the gains made during the war years. It came as no surprise that when, in October 1931, Mgr. Ogé was compelled to return to Europe in poor health, John was appointed pro-vicar (or acting prefect), and that on the death of Mgr. Ogé (November 1931), John succeeded as prefect (February 1932). Two years later, the prefecture was erected as a vicariate apostolic and John was ordained bishop of Thalensis. The ceremony took place at St. Mary's cathedral, Cork, on 30 September 1934. Bishop Daniel Cohalan of Cork diocese, assisted by Bishop Edward Mulhern of Dromore diocese and Bishop Roche of Cloyne diocese, were the ordaining prelates. John chose for his motto 'In Justitia et Pace'.
John was to remain at the helm in Liberia until the time of his death almost 30 years later. During these years he bore a heavy weight of responsibility as he sought to develop the fledgling Church entrusted to his care. Circumstances in Liberia were altogether different from those in Nigeria and in the Province's other mission fields, but this was a fact which was never fully appreciated by the Society leadership, or by Propaganda Fide. Liberia had an extremely difficulty climate (it was the original 'whiteman's grave'), there were no proper roads, no worthwhile medical facilities, and the population was small (perhaps 1.5 -2 million at most in a territory which was almost twice the size of Ireland). Strong anti-Catholic sentiment existed among the Americo-Liberian ruling elite who had come from the southern states of America and were largely Protestant.
All these factors conspired to make Liberia a difficult mission, where poverty, lack of progress, illness, and isolation were the frequent lot of missionaries. Several of the members sent to Liberia succumbed to the climate, and many more were invalided home, no longer fit for service in the tropics. Liberia had very few long-standing, experienced missionaries to induct the new, young, inexperienced priests sent out from Blackrock Road or Dromantine each year. Not only did Liberia suffer a higher rate of attrition than elsewhere, but it also suffered a critical shortage of financial resources. Unlike its Nigerian counterpart, the Church lacked the capacity to generate its own resources. Nonetheless despite these difficulties and a breakdown in health, brought about by long years in this inhospitable environment and overwork (in 1944), John courageously persevered in his task.
The introduction of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in 1937 was a signal achievement. Fund-raising expeditions to the U.S.A. in 1934 and 1936 provided John with the means to build a convent for the sisters. Shortly after their arrival the sisters opened a boarding and day school for girls in Monrovia which later, in the mid-forties, developed into a fully-fledged high school, St Theresa's. In the late forties, also, John decided to found a secondary college for boys in Monrovia. A trip to the U.S.A. in 1950 and a vigorous fund-raising campaign in Ireland, enabled him to build St. Patrick's high school (opened in 1954), a new convent for the sisters, and new modern buildings for St. Theresa's. John's role during a period of great crisis for Liberia (1929-1936), when the League of Nations set up an inquiry into alleged slavery in the Republic, and threatened to impose a Protectorate arrangement, won him the lasting gratitude of the Liberian government. His role in the diplomatic life of the state also did much to win credibility for the Church, and to diminish hostility. Establishing diplomatic relations with other states was one of the ways in which Liberia sought to secure its integrity against would-be aggressors, or intervention by well-meaning but ill-informed agencies such as the League of Nations. John, like his predecessor, was acutely aware of the importance of such matters. Thus it was that in 1932, after making representations to the Vatican, he was appointed Vatican Chargé d'Affaires to the Republic. In 1947, again as a result of his representations, the delegation was raised to the status of a Legation to mark the centenary of Liberian independence; and again in 1951 to the status of an Internunciature, John being nominated to fill the post. His efforts on the Kru Coast, where he had laboured for so long during his early career, and which he supervised from Monrovia after his appointment as bishop, were eventually to be rewarded when in 1950 the region was erected into a separate jurisdiction, the prefecture of Cape Palmas, today a diocese.
In 1960, now in precarious health, John offered his resignation to the Holy See. He agreed to remain on as apostolic administrator until a successor was appointed. He died before the appointment was made. At the time of his death he left behind him a Church which was growing strong and which in due course would become self-supporting and self-perpetuating, with its own major seminary, its own bishops (in three dioceses) and increasing numbers of indigenous priests and religious. The Liberian Church, forged in suffering and hardship, was to demonstrate its durability and resilience during the dark years of the civil war of the 1980's and 1990's.
When John died, national mourning for a period of 15 days was decreed by President Tubman. He received a state funeral, during which a salute of 17 guns was fired. The President delivered the funeral oration. During the course of his life John had been made a Knight Grand Commander of the Order of Pioneers of the Republic of Liberia. John was the younger brother of Michael Collins who was a general councillor in the Society. His nephew, Lawrence Collins, still serves in Liberia, like his uncle, the longest-serving missionary in that territory today (1995).
He is buried in the grounds of St. Theresa's convent, Monrovia, Liberia.
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