On what is Mission Sunday in Ireland, this weeks programme we continue into October as the month dedicated to the missions. John has the second part of an interview with Fr John Roche SPS who is a member of the St Patrick's Missionary Society (Kiltegan Father's) who has recently returned to Ireland after a life over seas. We have our regular reflection on the Sunday gospel and a quick run through the saints of the coming week.
[Just to note for our international listeners that the gospel reading on this weeks programme is taken for the Mass for Mission Sunday as per the Irish liturgical calendar]
This week interview with Fr John Roche's part two of a three part interview which will be broadcast in October. This weeks part of the interview focuses on Fr John's happy and fulfilling ministry in Malawi, from 1972 to 1992, and while his final years were calamitous, he did triumph over his adversity there.
In 1992, after 20 years of serving the Malawian people, as a priest, with seven of those years as an apostolic administrator in a diocese, John was expelled under threat of death from the central African country. The end for John in Malawi happened when the powers of the country discussed the assassination of the country's bishops, following a Lenten pastoral letter promoting the the justice and peace teachings of the church. The Athlone-born priest had just 24 hours to leave Malawi, or he would have been killed.