This Sunday at the Noon Mass, Archbishop Sartain will be with us to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Maryknoll Society, which has sent priests, sisters, and lay missioners all over the world to preach the Gospel. Many Maryknollers and friends of Maryknoll will be present for this special celebration, including former parishioners of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, the "Maryknoll parish" of Seattle which was closed back in 1953.A Brief History of Maryknoll
The United States was still a "mission country" when Father James Walsh of Boston and Father Thomas Price of Wilmington, North Carolina began to remind the Church in the United States of its worldwide missionary obligations. The two priests believed that the Church in this country could not grow to full stature until it sent its own sons and daughters as missioners to people in lands where Jesus and his message were unknown.
On June 29, 1911, Rome approved their plan, which was endorsed by the bishops of the United States. Their vision was to found a society to train American missioners, to send them overseas in the name of the Church, and to support them and their work. On the following day, Pope St. Pius X blessed the new Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America – which we know as Maryknoll.
A gifted administrator, Father (later Bishop) Walsh spent the next 25 years bringing the vision to life from Mary’s Knoll, near Ossining, New York. He published The Field Afar, a regular newsletter intended to stimulate the interest of American Catholics in the foreign missions. Now called simply Maryknoll, the magazine continues to inspire hundreds of thousands of readers. Meanwhile, Father Price led the first group of Maryknoll priests to China in 1918. He died the following year. On receiving news of Father Price’s death, Father Walsh said, "Summon everyone to the chapel. We now have a dear friend in heaven and we must ask him to help us."
Today, Maryknoll priests, brothers, sisters, and lay missioners work in over 30 countries. "To be a Missioner," Bishop James E. Walsh once said, "is to go where you are needed but not wanted; and to stay until you are wanted but not needed."
Maryknoll’s roots in Seattle go back to 1920, when Bishop O’Dea invited Maryknoll to come to Seattle to minister to the Japanese people of the city. Two Maryknoll Sisters soon arrived and established a kindergarten at 17th and Jefferson. None of their students was Catholic, but soon some Japanese families began to express an interest in the Catholic faith. In 1930, Father Murrett oversaw the building of a parish and school which ministered to a growing Japanese Catholic community and to Filipino Catholics as well.
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| Father Tibesar celebrating the First Holy Communion of some of his Japanese parishioners at the Minidoka internment camp for Japanese citizens, 1943. |
The thriving parish community was devastated by the internment of Japanese citizens that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Many of Seattle’s Japanese residents were sent to camps in Puyallup and Idaho. Their Maryknoll priests, Father Tibesar and Father Boesflug, went with them, and continued to minister to them through the war years. But when the Japanese returned to Seattle, they were uprooted from the old neighborhood. They settled in other areas, and the community was scattered. Filipino Catholics continued to worship at Queen of Martyrs until the parish was closed in 1953. The church itself was razed to make way for the expansion of Providence Hospital in 1976.
The presence and ministry of Maryknoll in Seattle has continued, however, from Maryknoll House on Capitol Hill. Through regular education programs and parish visits, Maryknoll priests and sisters have continued to spread the word about the work of Maryknoll. The first Seattle vocation to Maryknoll was Father Frank Kelliher back in 1929. Since then, many Seattleites have joined the work of Maryknoll, not only as priests and sisters, but as lay missioners and Maryknoll associates.
Our Lady of Maryknoll, pray for us.
