Société des Missions Africaines – Province d’Irlande
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né le 7 avril 1913 dans le diocèse de Tuam (Irlande) membre de la SMA 2 juillet 1933 prêtre le 20 décembre 1936 décédé le 8 avril 2005 |
1937-1942 Rome, études universitaires 1942-1969 séminaire de Dromantine, professeur décédé le 8 avril 2005 à Blackrock Road, Cork, Irlande, |
Father Robert Joseph MOLLOY (1913 – 2005
Robert Joseph Molloy was born in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo (the family address was in Bowgate Street), in the archdiocese of Tuam, on 7th April 1913.
He died in St. Theresa’s Nursing Unit, SMA House, Blackrock Road, Cork, on 8th April 2005.
Robert (Bob) Molloy was the second youngest of ten children born to James and Ellen (nee O’Shaughnessy) from the parish of St. Mary’s in Ballinrobe. His first contacts with the Society came through a neighbour, George McCormack, a member of the Society who Bob met during the latter’s leave from Africa. Also crucial in shaping his vocation was an experience Bob underwent in 1929. He saw a young man killed by a falling tree. This brought home to him the fragility of human existence and made him determined to live a worthwhile life. He chose the priesthood. Bob already had commenced his secondary education with the Christian Brothers in Ballinrobe. He now applied to join the Society and in the autumn of 1919 entered St. Joseph’s College, Wilton, Cork. Matriculating in 1931 (the students did not take the leaving certificate at that time) he was then promoted to the Society’s novitiate and house of philosophy, at Kilcolgan, Co Galway. In 1933 he entered the major seminary at Dromantine, Newry, Co Down. Bob was received as a permanent member of the Society on 2nd July 1933. Although five months under the required age, he obtained a dispensation to be ordained a priest with his class. The ordination took place on 20th December 1936, in St. Colman’s cathedral, Newry, by Bishop Edward Mulhern of Dromore diocese. He was one of a group of eighteen ordained on that day.
Bob had hoped to be sent to Africa after ordination and had already purchased a trunk for that purpose when he was informed that, instead, he was to study at the Lateran University, in Rome. The decision to send him there was not surprising, for the Society’s major seminary needed qualified professors and Bob had shown exceptional academic ability during his student days. Rome was a difficult assignment. Studies were demanding and Italy’s drift towards and into war led to shortages of food and other privations. However Bob applied himself and in 1940 was awarded a doctorate in Canon Law. His superiors then instructed him study for a second doctorate, this time in theology. The first year of study required him to take a Licence. Bob’s Scriptum or thesis was on ‘Dominative power in relation to societies without vows’. For his subsequent doctoral thesis he developed this study of religious life (especially the virtues pertaining thereto) and, in 1942, became a doctor of divinity.
It was now the summer of 1942 and Italy had been two years at war. Bob was needed in Dromantine, but travel back to Ireland was to prove problematic. Finally, at the end of July, in great secrecy, he joined a special train taking expatriates from Italy to Portugal. On arrival in Lisbon, two days later, Bob was among a group which boarded a sea-plane carrying a number of allied soldiers (escapees from German and Italian camps) to England. In the event the plane was forced to land in Foynes creating something of a stir which found its way into the newspapers of the time. Early in September Bob joined the staff in Dromantine, entrusted with the teaching of Junior Dogma. A year later he took on the teaching of Scripture as there was no one properly qualified available at that time. From 1952 he took charge of Senior Dogma, relinquishing Junior Dogma to another confrere. Between 1952-1958 he was also Vice Superior and Dean of Students, and between 1958-1969, Professor of Canon Law (a subject taught since the mid-1940’s by John Flanagan who had been in Rome with Bob). Bob was to spend a total of twenty-seven years teaching in Dromantine, exercising a profound influence over a generation of missionaries.
When, in the late 1960’s it became apparent that seminary academic formation would be transferred to Maynooth College, Bob’s talents were put to other uses by his superiors. The Provincial Assembly of 1968, to which Bob had been a delegate, set up a Provincial Secretariat in Cork with P.J. Killeen as Secretary General. One of the Secretariat’s main functions was to publish a quarterly Bulletin reproducing articles which would update the confreres in theology, in spirituality and human development and in mission studies. When Fr. Killeen died having just produced the first volume Bob was appointed to take on the post of Secretary General. Bob was to occupy this position from autumn 1969 until 1983, producing thirty-six volumes, all of excellent quality, and a tremendous resource for the membership. Bob’s talents were further recognised when he was elected as a delegate to the Provincial Assemblies of 1973 and 1978. Bob retired from the active ministry in August 1983, enjoying a long and fruitful retirement in Blackrock Road.
Bob lived to a great age, dying a day after his 92nd birthday. His mind remained alert until near the end of his life and until the final year he was sufficiently strong to be able to take his meals in the house refectory. His contributions to the conversation were always interesting and incisive, delivered with characteristic simplicity. Sometimes he produced treasures of memory. For example on one occasion, during the course of a discussion on cinema, he recalled that when he was a small boy his mother took him by the hand into an upstairs cinema in Ballinrobe to see a film called ‘The Brass Bullet’. This, it emerges, was a silent movie – a serial in 16 episodes – from 1918 of which no print remains extant. He would have been about six or seven at the time. Bob preserved a simplicity of life and outlook throughout his life. The homilist at his funeral Mass painted the following picture of Bob. ‘Bob was more than knowledgeable; he was wise. He carried his knowledge with a deep humility and modesty… knowledge about God and the things of God – a knowledge of God which cannot be learned in any book but only on one’s knees…Bob was indeed humble, modest and self-effacing, at a great cost to himself. He was never overly self-assertive and his sensitive nature could be pained by domineering personalities with strong opinions who had little patience with those of a more tender temperament. He will long live in the memory of all who learned from his lectures and his writings’.
Bob never enjoyed robust health. His experiences in Rome had undermined his general health and there can be no doubt that he was over-worked in Dromantine, especially in his early years. He was never sufficiently strong to work in Africa, although he did enjoy a short visit to the Society’s missions there for a month in 1968. Conscientious as always it was no surprise that on the day after his return he was back before his class in Dromantine.
He is buried in Wilton Cemetery.