The Splendid Cause

A history of the Missionary Society of St Columban from 1916 until 1954 by Fr Neil Collins.

Fr John Burger:

A young Catholic priest from Cork, Ireland, Fr Edward Galvin, had a missionary calling that inexorably took him to China. But he was not there long before he realised that he needed an organisation behind him to make the kind of impact that he dreamed of making in such a vast country.

Hoping to persuade the Catholic bishops of Ireland to set up a missionary college to provide priests for an Irish vicariate in China, he returned to Ireland and gradually began winning friends for his idea. The result was to become the Maynooth Mission to China, later named the Missionary Society of St Columban.

After an introductory chapter reviewing previous books on the history of the Columban Fathers in China and elsewhere and outlining the sources and methodologies he used in writing, the author, Fr Neil Collins, enthusiastically chronicles the founding of the Columban Fathers, their spread to the US and Australia, and the work and sufferings of Columban missionaries in China, the Philippines, Korea and Burma.

Priests, Sisters, brothers and lay volunteers from Ireland, the United States, Australia and New Zealand joined the mission, willing to share the ever-present dangers from bandits, floods, disease and war. World War II and the Korean War brought internment, and, for some, death. The narrative concludes when the last remaining Columban was expelled from China in 1954.

The legacy of Fr Galvin and those whom he inspired continues to be remembered in places as diverse as newly-prosperous Seoul and struggling Yangon.