Last weekend, St Brendan’s church (Badin parish, Pakistan) was blessed and officially opened by Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad. It was a joyful celebration for the local Punjabi community and for Columbans Frs Pat Visanti and Elbert Balbastro who minister there, writes Fr Pat Colgan.
St Brendan the Navigator (c. 484–578 AD) was an early Irish monastic saint best known for founding monasteries such as Clonfert, Co Galway, and for his Navigatio, a legendary medieval tale where he sailed the Atlantic in search of the “Isle of the Blessed”.
In 1976, British explorer Tim Severin set out to prove that this crossing by Brendan was physically possible, by sailing in leather currach to North America, demonstrating that early medieval seafarers could have reached the Americas centuries before Christopher Columbus.
St Brendan
Fifteen centuries later, Brendan McMullen (1930-2024), was born in Wallasey on the Wirral in England but when he was 8, the family returned to Belfast where he contracted scarlet fever and had to spend five months in hospital. He spoke Irish from birth and took particular satisfaction that, even during those early years in England, Irish was still his first language.
He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Down and Connor in 1964. His other three passions were rugby, education and music.
Fr Brendan served during the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, but the horror of the McGurk’s Bar bomb, planted by an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group killing 15, including two children, devastated his parish in 1971. Brendan attended the scene and carried the burden of the experience with him for the rest of his life.
Fr Brendan was again hijacked by Loyalists, at gunpoint, in July 2000 while driving. But this was not a burden he could keep to himself: his terror was captured by a photographer and made the international press.
In an interview after the incident, he confessed to being “badly shaken”.
“One of the hijackers told me to get out of the car. He seemed to be pointing a gun at my window. That and the fact that they were wearing hoods did make me fear for my life.”
Fr Brendan McMullen (1930-2024)
Fr Brendan and his brother Fr Kevin (also a priest of Down and Connor) were first cousins of Columban Fr John Marley (1927–2024). Ordained in 1950, Fr John served for decades in the Philippines, Chile, Italy, and the United States. He also passed away in 2024.
Because of that family connection, and also the friendship of one of the executors of Brendan’s will with Columban Fr Pat Colgan, a substantial sum of money was sent in Fr Brendan’s name, and that of his family, to the Columban Mission in Pakistan, which needed funds urgently for the construction of a Church in Golarchi, Badin.
The opening blessing was held on Sunday, 28th June 2026 by Bishop Samson Shukardin OFM.
It was a joyful celebration for the local Punjabi community, who had waited many years, and the arrival of funds, for this day to come. Two Columbans, Frs Pat Visanti (from Fiji) and Elbert Balbastro (from the Philippines) minister in Badin parish.
Bishop Samson cuts the ribbon at St Brendas parish.
Other Columbans from Karachi, Mirpurkhas, Sikunderabad and Hyderabad came to join in the celebration. At the end of Mass, Fr Dan O’Connor and catechist Master Shaukat gave the background to the struggle to acquire the plot of land over 10 years ago and the community’s inability to finish the church for lack of funds.
Enter the family of Fr Brendan.
The priests and the parish team in Badin agreed to name the church after St Brendan in his memory. St Brendan’s feast day (16th May) will be marked in a special way every year in Golarchi in the heart of Sindh province, in southern Pakistan.
Columbans and parish catechists with Bishop Samson
Even though St Brendan headed West, and Fr Brendan never worked outside Ireland, that navigating and missionary spirit continues to bear fruit in the desert of Pakistan.
In Asia, Golarchi Parish now joins the only other St Brendan the Navigator Parish (in Taipei, Taiwan) in honouring a true Irish pioneer of faith. We can be rightly proud.
If you would like to support our small Christian communities in Pakistan you can do this by donating online here: https://columbans.ie/donate/ Alternatively, call the Mission Office at 00353 46 9098275 or you can send a cheque payable to ‘Columban Missionaries’ to the Far East Office, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co Meath C15 AY2Y – please add a note stating it is for Columban Missionaries in Pakistan. Thank you.