Keeping the faith: former priest is true to his beliefs

Judy Murphy talks to Pádraig O’Toole on the publication of his ‘Aran to Africa’ memoir

Pádraig O’Toole was in many ways a perfect candidate to be ordained a missionary priest in the Catholic Church, when he took holy orders in 1964, as a member of the Society of African Missions (SMA).

Possessed of a devout faith, he was passionate about improving people’s lives and had a mischievous, self-deprecating sense of humour that would serve him well during his time in Africa.

However, he had entered an institution which demanded blind obedience, something which didn’t sit comfortably with Inis Mór born Pádraig.

Obedience per se was no problem, but he could never follow orders blindly. That difficulty was apparent from his earliest days in the SMA novitiate at Kilcolgan, as is recounted his memoir, Aran to Africa: An Irishman’s Unique Odyssey, which has just been published.

In the book, Pádraig, or Pat, as he is known locally, describes his colourful life, which included living in an Emir’s harem in Nigeria in the early 1970s after being tasked by his religious superior with setting up a school in a rural Muslim community there.

Long before that, there was his happy youth in Inis Mór, and his exile to Galway aged 12, speaking no English, for a secondary school education. Then there was his time in the novitiate in Galway and the seminary in Cork, where his independent thinking saw him penalised by those in power.

Eventually and perhaps unsurprisingly, after over a decade in Nigeria, during which time he witnessed the Biafran war and helped set up a range of educational initiatives, Pat left the priesthood in 1976, for reasons which he outlines in his memoir.

He had been sent home to Ireland from Nigeria for what his superiors in the SMA regarded as a misdemeanour. That involved returning to Africa from Ireland without permission while he was on sick leave, because he wanted to attend to problems in the school he had established.

Once back in the Cork HQ, he was appointed editor of the SMA magazine, after being trained in journalism. But he hadn’t joined the priesthood to be based in Ireland and after a period of reflection, he opted out.

Two things made it easy to leave, he says.

Firstly, he had got a chance to do some good in Africa, and secondly he had never bought into the traditional missionary idea of ‘saving souls’, which was prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s.  And of course he was never cut out to be ‘a yes man’.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.