Michael Joseph Moloney

Michael Joseph Moloney CSSp CBE (born May 12, 1912 in Bodyke , County Clare , † December 31, 1991 in Kimmage ) was an Irish Roman Catholic clergyman and Bishop of Banjul in Gambia .

Life

Origin and education

Moloney was born on May 12, 1912 in Bodyke, County Clare, Ireland, into a farming family of three brothers and three sisters, and attended Blackrock College (in Williamstown Castle ) of the Spiritans , where his uncle was a teacher. He was in 1928 and 1929 captain of the senior rugby team in the Cup victories of the Leinster schools . After Blackrock he went to the Holy Ghost Missionary College at Kimmage Manor and studied philosophy and theology.

Work in the Gambia

He was ordained a priest on June 20, 1937 and went to Gambia in Africa in 1938 . At that time the British colony was "a missionary backwater". The country's population was predominantly Muslim. The Anglican Diocese of Gambia and the Rio Pongas had already been founded in 1937, but the organization of the Roman Catholic Church in Gambia was still being established as the Apostolic Prefecture of Bathurst . First he worked in Basse Santa Su , under Father Meehan , who had come to Gambia in 1905. Moloney traveled to the local villages by bike or on foot and founded small catechetical schools . In Basse he founded a mission school with a garden for horticultural experiments and fruit trees in the center of the city. Some of the 31 students were Christians. In 1942 he founded a chapel and ran a school in the village of Mansajang Kunda . He created readings from the New Testament, a short Bible story, and a catechism in the Fula language, and tried to convert people who were not Muslims. He had difficulty converting people to Catholicism for a variety of reasons. By 1943 he had also founded a school in Fula Bantang . In 1948, with the support of Father Corrigan, he had a mission house built in Mansajang Kunda. At the end of 1951 he was appointed Apostolic Prefect . Michael Joseph Moloney moved into the church's residence in the capital Bathurst.

Bishop of Bathurst / Banjul

In 1957 the Pope founded the Diocese of Bathurst in The Gambia and named Moloney on December 24, 1957 its first bishop. On Sunday, May 4, 1958 he donated in Kimmage Manor the apostolic nuncio in Ireland, Archbishop Albert Levame , in the presence of the Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid and Irish President Éamon de Valera , the episcopal ordination ; Co- consecrators were Joseph Rodgers , Bishop of Killaloe , and Bishop Patrick Joseph Dunne . Also present were his mother, six siblings and some people who had traveled from Gambia.

1973 Bathurst was renamed Banjul , and on May 9, 1974 he became Bishop of Banjul. From 1975 to 1977 he was president of the Inter Territorial Catholic Bishops 'Conference of Gambia and Sierra Leone (ITCABIC; Engl. Inter-territorial Catholic Bishops' Conference of The Gambia and Sierra Leone ).

Retirement

He retired on November 14, 1980 due to illness and in 1981 retired to the Spiritans' house, the Kimmage Estate. Moloney died on December 31, 1991.

Awards and honors

• 1951: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
• In Basse Santa Su , "Bishop Moloney Avenue" is named after him.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Welcome to Banjul Diocese. In: banjuldiocese.gm. web.archive.org, 2017, archived from the original on January 3, 2017 ; accessed on February 15, 2020 .  
2. ↑ ^{a b} Bishop MIchael Joseph Moloney [Catholic-Hierarchy]. In: catholic-hierarchy.org. www.catholic-hierarchy.org, accessed February 15, 2020 .  
3. ↑ ^{a b} Diocese of Banjul, Gambia. In: gcatholic.org. GCatholic, accessed February 15, 2020 .  

predecessor	Office	successor
Matteo Farrelly	Bishop of Banjul 1951–1981	Michael J. Cleary