Société des Missions Africaines
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né en 1852 à Hospital dans le diocèse de Cashel, Irlande membre de la SMA le 14 juin 1878 prêtre le 26 mai 1880 décédé le 22 février 1881 |
1880-1881 missionnaire en Egypte décédé à Tanta, Egypte, le 22 février 1881, |
Le père Michael O’CARROLL (1852 – 1881)
Le 22 février 1881, à Tanta, en Egypte, retour à Dieu du père Michael O’Carroll, à l’âge de 29 ans.
Michael O’Carrol naquit à l’Hospital, dans le diocèse de Cashel (Irlande), en 1852. Après ses études faites à l’Hospital et à Dublin, il entrait aux Missions Africaines en 1877, faisait le serment l’année suivante et était ordonné prêtre en 1880. En septembre 1880, il prenait le chemin de l’Egypte et était nommé à Tanta, fondé deux ans auparavant. Au début d’une station, le Seigneur demande souvent le sacrifice. Le père O’Carroll, en mourant 5 mois après son arrivée, devenait le protecteur spécial de la mission de Tanta. Il mourut d’une pneumonie, compliquée de fièvre typhoïde.
Humble et franc, le père O’Carroll était d’une nature bonne et simple.
Father Michael O’CARROLL (1852 – 1881)
Michael O’Carroll was born in the town of Hospital, Co Limerick, in the archdiocese of Cashel, in 1852. He died in Tantah, near Cairo, Egypt, from pneumonia complicated by typhoid fever, on 22 February 1881.
We know very little about Michael’s background. He studied in Hospital (Co Limerick) and in Dublin before deciding to join the Society of African Missions in 1877. He probably had some ecclesiastical training in Dublin before coming to the Society because his course of studies was short. Michael was among the first group of students recruited by the All-Hallows trained James O’Haire, a missionary in South Africa, who in 1876 returned to Ireland to seek out members for the S.M.A. After a brief period in the Society’s apostolic school in Mayfield, Cork – he was then 25 years old – Michael went to the Society’s major seminary at Cours Gambetta, Lyon, France, where he studied theology. He took his permanent oath of membership on 14 June 1878 and was ordained a priest in the seminary chapel at Lyon on 26 May 1880. The ordaining prelate, according to Society records, was a Bishop Germain.
After ordination Michael was assigned to the Egyptian mission, going there directly from Lyon in September l880. The S.M.A.’s first contacts with Egypt date from 1877. At the time the Superior General, Augustin Planque, was urgently seeking a suitable mission field for the growing number of members whose health had been irreparably damaged in West Africa, or who for other reasons were no longer capable of enduring the rigors of tropical Africa. Egypt had a good climate to recommend it. Michael’s appointment there came as no surprise as he had a delicate constitution.
Auguste Duret was founder and first superior of the Egyptian mission, which in 1884 was erected as a vicariate apostolic. One of the first institutions established by Mgr. Duret, was an elementary school in Choubra, to the east of Cairo, named after St. George. It was to this institution that Michael was assigned. However his missionary career was to be cut tragically short when he died within five months of his arrival.
He is buried in Choubra, Egypt.