Missionary with a Hungry Heart
Fr Pat Whitney,
Founder of St Patrick's Missionary Society |
17th March, 1932 is our date of birth. That day, cousins Pat Whitney, 38, and Frank Whitney, 39, with Francis Hickey, 46, became the first members of St Patrick’s Missionary Society.
In Kenya when a woman gives birth to her first child she is known from then on as, for instance, “Mama Patrick” and her husband is “Baba Patrick”. So, on 17 March 1932, Pat, aided by Frank and Francis, became “Baba St Patrick’s” and there was no turning back.
STEPPING INTO THE FUTURE
The genesis of St Patrick’s goes back to February 1920. Pat Whitney, a Maynooth student, was awaiting ordination to the priesthood in June. He would be a priest of an Irish diocese. He might spend a few years in America but would settle down in a familiar Irish parish and live out his days. On that February day, however, into his life marched Father Joseph Shanahan, a man with a white missionary beard and oozing zeal and vision. Pat was totally captivated and wrote in his diary, “Fr Shanahan pleaded for Africa - Nigeria. The appeal went straight to my heart. If I can, I will go - God direct me. By St Patrick’s Day it will be decided.”
Pat decided for Nigeria and landed there on 15 December, 1920. He settled into parish life but quickly felt the demands and urgency of missionary work and the need for more priests like himself. A restless and enterprising man, one could say of him, as Tennyson did of Ulysses, that he had a ‘hungry heart’.
Within a year he was writing in his diary, “23 December, 1921. I’ve thought out a stunt of a Maynooth Nigerian diocese”. Now, a stunt is usually a boyish trick or adventure. This stunt, after many twists and turns, became our Society.
We who have followed in his footsteps do not regard Pat as exceptional. Just one of ourselves. We’d be slow to call him a visionary, but a visionary he was. Now, visionaries are not like the rest of us. They do not have normal 20/20 vision but have 25/20 or maybe 25/15. They can be taken over by what they see or imagine is possible, though they can also be blind to what they don’t want to see.
The visionary is a man of action. They see and they do. They take you out at night to look at the sky. They point up at a very bright star and they say I want to reach that star. You do not see any bright star at all but, for peace sake, you give a grunt of agreement.
IGNORING NO ENTRY SIGNS
The visionary ignores opposition or the common prudence that says, “Don’t try that, it won’t work”. They see a No Entry sign and they Go In. Pat Whitney was cast in that mould. In fact he took joy in outmanoeuvring a No Entry sign.
In 1923, after only three years in Nigeria, he was told by Bishop Shanahan to return to Ireland to drum up funds for the newly emerging Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary. Pat worked hard and discovered how difficult it is to raise money. In June 1926 he returned to Nigeria.
The Irish diocesan volunteer priests in Nigeria increasingly realised that they needed a clearer structure and Pat’s “stunt” came into the open for the first time. In November 1927, Bishop Shanahan, Pat Whitney, Vincent Davey and John Finegan agreed, in a written Declaration of Intent, on the formation of a new Society. “Bishop Shanahan undertakes to form this with the approval of Rome”. The approval was given on 21 June, 1928. In November 1928 Bishop Shanahan wrote, “I have to see about getting this new Society on its feet”. In January 1929, however, he withdrew from the project.
This was providential because the bishop, in failing health and already with a full workload in Nigeria, would never have had the time and energy to get the new Society on its feet. Pat realised that it was now up to himself to make things happen. He returned to Ireland. With no money and no place to stay, he moved in with his family; they were the only possible provider of the money that he would need for travel and expenses. (The Whitney family have played a very key role in our Society.)
Pat went to Rome, met a number of powerful figures and, by 10 December, 1929, got the go-ahead for the now named St Patrick’s Missionary Society. In March 1930 he moved into a house in Kiltegan donated by John Hughes. In the same month Pat made an appeal to the students in Maynooth and netted, as Shanahan had netted him, five remarkable men, four of whom would be the backbone of the Society for many years and at the frontline of our missionary work.
LEADING FROM THE FRONT
The next two years were given to the setting up of a network of supporters and friends, the establishment of a magazine that became Africa and the hands-on renovation of the buildings in Kiltegan. This brings us up to 17 March, 1932 and the formal foundation of the Society.
On 12 June, 1932 Pat left for Nigeria and remained there until May 1933. He met priests and bishops and then spent seven months in most spartan conditions in a very remote parish; probably to rekindle his missionary spirit and to again experience the loneliness and challenges of missionary life.
His style of leadership was very task-orientated and he had that strongly male characteristic of not discussing what he was about to do, taking for granted that people would see what was obviously the way to proceed. He was also not confined by normal conventions. At a time when there was huge stress on convention and orthodoxy, he went ahead with things that priests of the time would not engage in, all in pursuit of what would be best for a missionary Society.
Pat had to try to both support the priests on the missions and to entice students to Kiltegan. In some cases the priests on the missions thought that he was neglecting them but, given the limited resources of that time, he was torn between looking after the priests already in Nigeria and trying to get his own small army of priests from among the students.
UNEXPECTED ILLNESS
Meanwhile, from 1936, Pat’s health began to deteriorate. His final journey had begun. A neurological disease had set in. Pat was unaware of it. The Society and those on the missions were unaware of his condition. The gradual change in his health brought a lot of suffering to Pat himself and to his followers. It was the drinking of the cup that Christ had promised to James and John.
In 1938 at the end of his term as Superior General he left Kiltegan. He returned to Nigeria, as Prefect Apostolic of Ogoja, but lasted only a few months and left Nigeria in February 1939. From then on it was all downhill. His final days were spent in the care of his own family and he died with his mother and family on 17 July, 1942 at the age of forty eight.
He was a man of great courage and faith and the Holy Spirit inspired him to help in the spread of the Gospel. He was unorthodox and raised eyebrows, which is what Christ Himself did in the Israel of his time. He did not fear the high and mighty but he was at his best when elbow to elbow with the lowly, like Christ himself. He was by his own admission impatient and could get angry, a trait very common among Irish people. But he had the gift to inspire priests and students to work for the Rich Harvest.
He left us two rather unusual gifts. Firstly, he had no airs or graces himself and wished us to be the same. We should be ready for any kind of work, academic, manual or pastoral, for the spread of the Gospel. Secondly, he passed on to us an extraordinary attachment to our families, and by some miracle (maybe of his prayers) our families love and support us beyond measure. This gives us great personal strength and security. Our loved and loving families continue to be the greatest benefactors of our missionary work.
YOU'D DIE FOR HIM
By your fruits you shall know them. On this criterion Pat Whitney led a very fruitful life in spite of much struggle and suffering. In terms of numbers we are small potatoes, we have never been more than about four hundred members at any one time. But we try in our small way to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
In conclusion, a very incisive contribution from Father Joe Kelly who died last year at the age of ninety-one. Sometime in 1936 a few students were out working in the garden near the priests' house. A shower of rain came and they stood in under a tree. Fr Whitney put his head out the window and called, “Is it sugar ye’re made of.” “So, Joe, what was he like?” “Well,” said Joe, “he was gruff. But you’d die for him.”
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