Half a century of missionary service for Fr James

After six decades of service as a Capuchin friar Killygarry native Fr James Connolly will retire in the coming months. The OFM Capuchin clergyman has held a number of high-ranking roles in the order since he joined in June 1961. This year he celebrates his Diamond jubilee.

Fr James was educated at St Patrick’s College, before attaining a BA degree from University College Cork in Philosophy and History. He was ordained at the Capuchin friary near Creeslough in Donegal in 1970.

Fr James left for Zambia in 1970 when there were over 50 Irish Friars and no Zambian friars. Now there are over 50 Zambian friars and only two Irish friars.

In the beginning, the friars set out to train teachers and administrators with the intention of handing over the school system, to local control when the opportunity arose.

The Capuchins first went to Zambia (then the British Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia) in 1931. They were assigned a territory of over 200,000 square km in the far west of the country under the Government terms then in force.

After a lifetime in Zambia it’s no surprise Fr James is fluent in both Silozi and Luvale - two of the local languages. His missionary work for over 50 years has been mostly in the Western Province with six years in the North Western province.

Fr James says social development was the aim of the order’s mission: “The Capuchin order set up secondary schools and a teachers’ training college in Zambia. In all this they gave special emphasis to the education of girls and young women, and had to face and overcome a great deal of opposition in doing so. In 1974 in the diocese of Livingstone, the Capuchin order handed over about 220 primary schools to the government. From 1980 on, the friars invested heavily in the training of local vocations as well as building up missions and out centres,” he tells.

There were many challenges to the work of the missionary priest: “Mongu became a separate diocese in 1997, Livingstone diocese was divided as it was too big. Sancta Maria Mission Lukulu, is the oldest parish in Mongu diocese but it has over 70 outlying churches. Some of these can only be visited once or twice a year because of difficult terrain and floods in the wet season.

“A very big undertaking by the diocese in Lukulu this past two years was reclaiming of an old run down mission hospital from Government and with much work at great cost turning it into a School of Nursing and Midwifery. It was officially opened by the Bishop in November 2021 and now has 60 first year nursing students. A driving force behind this project is Sr Pat Hanvey a Loreto Sister from Co Down and her two fellow sisters. The Capuchin Mission office in Dublin has contributed €10,000 towards this worthy project.”

Fr James has served as the second Vicar General of Mongu diocese under the late Bishop Paul Duffy and under the present Bishop Evans Chinyemba. He will retire from that role in the next couple of months as he will be past the canonical age.

The Capuchin priest has seen a lot of changes in his time in Zambia: “1n 1992 a Zambian Vice-Province of the Capuchin Order was established. The new vice-province, which is under the patronage of Saint Francis, includes the whole of Zambia and the Caprivi Strip of Namibia. The professed friars are made up of nine Zambians, six from New Jersey in the USA, and 28 from Ireland, making a total of 43.”

Fr James was elected Vice-Provincial for the 1992 – 1998 period. The Capuchin leadership now is entirely Zambian.

His five decades in the rugged southern African country have made a lasting impression on Fr James: “The population of Zambia is 19,143,267 as of December 2021. Almost 50 years after independence from Britain, English is still the main official language. Yet the country has a rich linguistic heritage and seven out of an estimated 70 local languages have official status.

“Zambia contains abundant natural resources, including minerals, wildlife, forestry, freshwater and arable land. In 2010, the World Bank named Zambia as one of the world’s fastest economically reformed countries. Since 1991 Zambia has become a multi-party state and has experienced several peaceful transitions of power.”

Fr James acknowledges the challenges facing the African nation: “The country’s population is relatively young, nearly half under the age of 25. Zambia’s birth rate is significantly higher than the world average, and its death rate is among the highest in the world. Zambia’s lower life expectancy and higher death rate are attributable in part to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country.

“HIV /AIDS still cause deaths of many, but people now have free access to drugs that control it. Malaria is still a high cause of death especially in babies and young children. Covid has caused many deaths also and the fourth wave or Omicron variant is now hitting the population and numbers are rising,” he concluded.