Spiritans mark 300 years

Sydney
13 July 2003

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Spiritans mark 300 years

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Spiritans mark 300 years

The Congregation of the Holy Spirit, or Spiritan Congregation, which has about 20 priests in Australia, celebrated its 300th anniversary at Pentecost.

Theirs is a missionary congregation. In Australia their emphasis is on parish work and Aboriginal ministry.

Fr Paul Hopper, parish priest of Kingswood in the Parramatta diocese, and Fr Gerry Ryan are the only Spiritan priests in NSW.

The rest are in the dioceses of Melbourne, Rockhampton, Brisbane, Broome, Bunbury, Toowoomba and Geraldton.

In Port Hedland and South Hedland, WA, the Spiritans take care of two parishes, work with the Aboriginal community and with asylum seekers in the Port Hedland detention centre, and have ministry to seafarers, too.

The congregation was founded in Paris in 1703 by Claude Poullart des Places. The first Spiritans to come to Australian arrived in Perth in 1846 but did not remain.

More arrived in 1889 to work in Holy Spirit College in Ballarat (now St Patrick’s College, and in the care of the Christian Brothers) to teach the sons of people attracted there by the gold rush.

In 1971 two Irish priests, Fr George Lahiffe and Fr Thomas Byrne, arrived in Brisbane to set up the Australian province of the congregation.