Our Priests and Sisters (by Joe Barkovich)

Father Jim Mulligan
Welland-born priest and educator Rev. James Mulligan CSC has been named Assistant General of the worldwide Holy Cross Fathers (La Congregation de Sainte-Croix).

He leaves for Rome, where the community has its headquarters, later this month. His appointment is for 31/2 years.

Mulligan, 58, works at faith formation with teachers, principals, administrators and trustees as faith formation animator with the Niagara Catholic District School Board. He was for many years a teacher at Welland’s Notre Dame College School where he taught religion and French. The Holy Cross Fathers founded the Catholic high school in 1947. Mulligan is one of its graduates.

Catholic education emerged as one of his two special interests. He is the author of three books including the best-selling Catholic Education: The Future is Now, which he wrote in 1999.

Mulligan said he was surprised when he learned he was being considered for one of the Assistant General positions with his community.

He said he returned from an errand to find a message on the voice mail in his office. It was a call from the Superior General, Rev. Hugh Cleary CSC, telling him the job had opened, he was being considered for it and was on the short list of candidates.

“I found out there were two of us on the short list, and I was the taller of the candidates so I got it,” said Mulligan, not able to repress his characteristic sense of humour.

Alongside Catholic education, his other passion is social justice. At Notre Dame high school, Mulligan headed up the religion department for several years and worked to instil in students awareness of and commitment to social justice.

He organized justice-themed starvathons 30 years ago which gave rise to the school’s annual pilgrimage for the Third World. The pilgrimage observed its 25th anniversary last year. By tradition, Mulligan celebrates the closing mass and delivers a stirring homily on justice issues. Also by tradition, more than 1,000 of school’s approximately 1,500 students participate each year.

The Holy Cross Fathers operate a centre for developmentally and physically challenged in the Lima, Peru barrio of Canto Grande. Mulligan has served there and in other parts of that country in the past.

His portfolio as Assistant General is in education and social justice. Though based in Rome, he will be spending part of his time visiting the Holy Cross communities in India, Bangladesh, eastern Africa as well as Latin America, especially Haiti and Peru.

“The mandate calls for going to the different places where the congregation has a presence, to connect the geographical units of the congregation,” he said. “The General’s office, the leadership team is the focal point of unity, the glue to connect India with English Canada with Peru with Ghana and down the line.”

The Holy Cross community has about 1,900 priests and brothers worldwide. It has about 300 members in Canada, most in Quebec and others in the United States, most at South Bend, Indiana and the University of Notre Dame.

Mulligan said the community’s fastest growth area now is India.

“It’s amazing, the growth there. To the credit of the Canadians, especially our French members, when we went to India in the 1940s they really worked at giving the Indian priests autonomy as soon as they could and they did. That’s really our greatest place of growth now, India and Bangladesh.”

Mulligan has been given permission to spend three-quarters of his time on assignment based in Rome and one-quarter in Canada so he can continue his work in Catholic education with teachers and others.

A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Rome’s Gregorian University, Mulligan was ordained in 1968. He received a Doctor of Ministry from the University of Toronto in 1993.

“Somehow, the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit spoke through my parents, my family, the Irish Catholic culture I was growing up in, and the work of the Holy Cross Fathers,” he said when asked why he decided to go into religious life. “All very, very natural , very human things but in that, the finger of God was there I believe, and the grace is working.”

The Holy Cross community was founded by Rev. Basil Moreau in Sainte-Croix, France followng the French Revolution. In 1841, a group of priests, brothers and sisters were sent to the United States where they founded the University of Notre Dame. In 1847, a second group was sent to the Montreal suburb of St. Laurent, establishing the community’s presence in Canada.

VOCATION: My Story (By Sister Carmen Diston IBVM)
At the end of four years at St. Michael¹s College, University of Toronto, I began formal preparations to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loretto Sisters). Our foundress is Mary Ward, a sixteenth century English woman, who pioneered a new role and place for women in the church. Mary Ward wrote "it seems right that ... women also should and can provide something more than ordinary in the face of this common spiritual need" (passing on the faith in a time of religious persecution). Her life was lived courageously and joyfully, in the midst of struggle and misunderstanding. Mary Ward¹s story impresses and inspires me.

It is God who calls us. The challenge is to hear and discern that call which, for me, often comes through people: family, teachers, friends, acquaintances. My family life was filled with love and faith. My parents were generous and giving, to their children and to others. They were involved in the community. Family life set a solid foundation.

God¹s call came more clearly through the witness of high school teachers who were women Religious. These teachers were women of joy and integrity, of justice, full of life and energy, who were willing to companion me in my life¹s journey. The Sisters walked with me and others, always listening and guiding, sharing of themselves and generous with the time they gave to students. Their lives caught my interest and over time I made a connection between the people they were and the life style they had chosen. My vocation grew from the desire to share in the kind of life (vowed life) that nourished and supported their ministry and presence.

Each Religious receives a ring on the occasion of her profession. It symbolises both commitment and relationship, with and to God and the church. On my profession ring of 1984 is the phrase "live in courage and joy." That challenge is at the heart of my call. God has called me in new and different ways, ever changing ones demanding new responses.

My own horizons are continually changing and being stretched. After one and a half years of teaching I moved into parish ministry and some retreat work with youth. Twelve years of parish ministry was a very rich experience, a privileged time of accompanying people in a faith journey, and in the joys and struggles of their lives. Whatever the context, each person had a story to tell about her/his journey and where it was leading. Together, we were seeking life.

Assisting Central American refugees to settle in the Niagara peninsula allowed new relationships to grow, and broadened my understanding of just how small our world is. We are all connected. A later opportunity to assist in a Romanian orphanage for two months deepened that awareness and allowed me to experience life with less and yet be joy-filled. I have met people from many walks of life and many continents. They have helped me fashion an interest in and love for people and places, listening to stories, asking questions, seeking understanding. I have learned to have a heart and mind open to the richness of ways of seeing and acting different than my own. In my relationships I have learned how interrelated we all are as people and as nations. And so I am challenged to find ways to stand with others. I am now coordinator of Loretto Christian Life Centre (a retreat centre in Niagara Falls) as well as being involved in the ministry of community leadership in the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is a path which I did not seek, yet God has chosen for me. I am constantly reminded of God¹s presence and grace in these new and life-giving ministries.

Mary Ward struggled with being a woman in the church of her day. She was continually seeking the way forward, following various paths as God showed them to her. She was a voice of change in her time - and still is in ours. Mary Ward had a vision ("that women should and can provide something more than ordinary"), sometimes clear, other times not so clear. It is still the same today as women everywhere make their contribution to church and society. It is a journey ³more than ordinary² that requires courage and joy.

As a member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I am proud of the commitment to service that we bring to the church and the world. When I began my formal preparation to live as a vowed woman in this community, I could not have guessed where God would lead. Each day I see more clearly the inspiration and witness that Mary Ward gives to all - vowed or not. I¹m glad to be a part of the life she founded for women.

Carmen Diston, IBVM February 2001