The Vatican’s former top man in charge of mission outreach to children and youth of the world was in Perth last week to thank supporters for their ongoing support.
Fr Patrick Byrne SVD, who for the decade from 1999-2009 was Secretary General for the Pontifical Council of the Holy Childhood Association, is in Australia for two weeks to thank those who have donated to Catholic Mission, the Australian Catholic Bishops’ agency which acts for the Association in this country.
The Association was established in 1843 with a specific agenda to alleviate the suffering of poor and vulnerable children in the world but in Australia it is known as “Children’s Mission”, and operates as part of Catholic Mission.
During his visit to Perth, Fr Byrne spoke to The Record about Girl-Child education before his public lecture with Fr Erasmus Norviewu-Mortty on the same topic at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle on 25 October.
“One of the major aspects of Holy Childhood is Girl education because we know that educating women, educating girls, is going to be very important for the growth of any country for its stability, for its development,” he said.
Among numerous other initiatives, the Holy Childhood Association funds extensive education such as schools in underdeveloped areas throughout the world and is responsible for the education of hundreds of thousands of children annually who otherwise would find it impossible to have access to even basic forms of schooling. Girls are often the last to have access to education. In this regard, he said, Australia’s first official Saint, Mary MacKillop, was ahead of her times.
She had, he said, clearly suffered for the advances she wanted to make in education in early Australia.
“Mary MacKillop was very original in her thinking on education. The actual Church didn’t know how to deal with her because she was ahead of her time. And now the Church recognises that, by canonising her. It’s a basic right of everyone to be educated, whether boy or girl,” he said.
As part of his role with the Holy Childhood Association, Fr Byrne represented the Vatican and attended the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Children in 2002, a follow-up conference to the “World Summit of Children” held in 1990.
He said that he agreed with the sentiments of a 14 year old Bolivian girl who asked on the last day whether they would see any action.
“You could ask the same question now, how many things have changed?” he said.
“It is a long process to inculcate everyone with a sense of justice where the education of children and of girls is concerned,” he said.
Currently, Holy Childhood is responsible for over 2,700 projects involving child health clinics, feeding centres, clean water and sanitation systems, pre-schools, primary schools and orphanages run by Catholic missionaries in over 160 developing countries world-wide.
Fr Byrne has recently been elected the Superior General of the Divine Word Missionaries for Britain and Ireland.