Fr. John Keane, of Cloyne Diocese, has volunteered to spend some time in mission in the Archdiocese of Monrovia in Liberia, West Africa. He leaves for his Mission on Mon. 17th January. Fr. John, who already has missionary experience, will be met by another Irish volunteer, Fr Aidan Crowley, a priest of Dublin Archdiocese, but a native of Ballinlough, Cork.

Liberia was originally colonised by America in 1821 and its capital city, Monrovia, named after the 5th US President, James Monroe. Approx. 8.2% of the population are Catholic. The Archdiocese is spread over 29 parishes, with a total of 36 priests to serve 134,324 Catholics, a ratio of 3,731 people per priest, scattered over 6,168 square miles.

The country of Liberia is unusual among African Nations in that it was never colonised in the European carve-up of the the African Continent. The US establised it as a country for freed slaves who went on to develop their country into a Republic. Sadly two civil wars have left their mark on the economy of the country which still has a subsistence existence for most citizens with an average income of $1.25 per day.

Please remember Fr. John in your prayers and all those who minister to the neediest in Monrovia.

YOUGHAL PRIEST FR. JOHN KEANE will undertake a charity walk on Youghal beach on Monday December 27th in a bid to raise urgent funds for a new posting in Liberia. The 50 year-old clergyman is a popular and familiar figure to east Cork and west Waterford parishioners, from Ballymacoda to Lismore and all points in between and support for his missionary work has long been active and generous in the region.

Fr. Keane spent three years to late 2009 in Equador but says that eventually struggling with Spanish, especially at administrative level, was seriously impeding his work. Following a year’s sojourn in Youghal, during which he was treated successfully for a back ailment, he has volunteered to serve a poverty-ravaged parish in west Africa. “I was encouraged by a Cork born colleague to assist,” he reveals. “It’s a strongly Christian country, with a large Catholic population but vocations never took off there.”

The priest will be based in the capital Monrovia from next January and while not yet fully au fait with the details of his new posting, he describes it as within the biggest of three large dioceses in the region. Additionally, he is conscious of the legacy of poverty left by Liberia’s 1989-1996 civil war that claimed 200,000 lives and displaced a million people. The country’s current population is circa 4,000 on a land mass of 43,000 sq miles.

Liberia’s adult literacy rate is estimated at 55.5%, while 68% of the population live below the poverty line.
An estimated 35% of Liberians are malnourished, only 28% are fully immunized, just 25% have access to safe drinking water and only 36% have access to proper sanitation. Sustained economic growth is also hindered by inadequate roads, water, sewage, and electrical services.

Fr. Keane will hope to replicate the food and nutrition projects he established so successfully in Ecuador, thanks largely to donations from east Cork and west Waterford. “It’s important to bring Jesus into people’s lives as a friend and protector but it would be hypocritical to do so in church only and to walk out and say bye-bye, see you next week,” comments the plain-speaking priest. “So yes, I will be at trying very hard to practice what the Bible preaches, not just repeat it.”

The fundraising walk departs the front strand promenade at 2 pm for the round journey of six miles to Pilmore and back. Sponsorship cards are available from the priest at Kilcoran Road (086-8332105) or from Anne Murray, Golf Links Road (087-2807618; 024-92947).

She arrived in Ireland as she had spent most of her young life, crying with pain. She left carrying the broadest of smiles, the warmest of memories and the prospect of a far better life. She leaves behind, a community enriched by her month-long presence.
Report: Christy Parker  Photo: Eddie O’Brien and Michael Hussey www.youghalonline.com
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Three-year old Asley Guale hails from an immensely impoverished quarter of La Libertad city, west Ecuador. Asley lost her sight before she was a year old, coinciding with agonising pain that reduced her life to a cruel circle of crying and exhausted sleep.

Youghal priest Fr. John Keane, who formerly administered in west Waterford and now runs a mission in La Libertad, became aware of her story. “Anyone with a heart could not but be saddened to see a young child is such pain,” he recalls. The priest financed visits to Ecuador’s top doctors to no avail. “Nothing worked. They were just prescribing medicine and eye drops and her agony continued,” he recalls. In desperation, he contacted ophthalmologist Dr. Gerard O’Connor at Cork University Hospital, who agreed to help.

Eventually Asley, her mother Lucia and Fr. Keane flew to Ireland, where Dr. O’Connor quickly diagnosed a cancerous tumour behind Asley’s left eye. “He was absolutely fantastic in all he did for us,” says Fr. John, “and he couldn’t believe she had survived such pain. The surgeon subsequently removed both tumour and Asley’s left eye.

Following a week in CUH, during which she became adored by staff and patients alike, Asley recuperated in Youghal at the home of Fr. Keane’s sister Mary. She became a girl transformed. “For the first time in her life, she sang and she danced,” says her priest and saviour.

Local kindness

Locals took the blind little girl to their hearts. “The kindness and concern shown was truly incredible’” said Fr, Keane. “People arrived at the door with money, gifts and clothes.” Some shopkeepers refused to take money for goods. A party was held. A fundraising drive saw an autographed Cork football jersey auctioned and drinkers across the town’s pubs gave generously to collections.

Ever more touchingly, throughout her revival the little girl herself displayed an awareness and concern for her family back in Ecuador. She repeatedly asked that her older brother and sister back home had enough to eat in the wooden shack they call home. In her neighbourhood, where poverty is relentless, bad days see families flavour water with leaves from trees by way of sustenance. “That might be the main meal for the day,” says Fr. Keane.

The Irish Council for the Blind have provided advice as to Asley’s ongoing requirements and a fund is being established towards her future in a country where “80% of blind people endure lifetime begging on the streets,” says Fr. Keane.

Asley received a lot but in a time of economic woe, she enabled a community to unearth the golden generosity in their hearts.

By Christy Parker | Photo: Michael Hussey (YoughalOnline.com)

Tickets are now on sale -and selling fast- for a fundraising dance featuring legendary Irish country star Louise Morrissey at the Walter Raleigh Hotel, Youghal. The concert, on Friday November 7th hopes to raise money towards the missionary work Fr. John Keane, a Youghal priest working amongst the extreme poor people in Ecuador.

Fr. Keane arrived in Ecuador in 2006 and works with the St. James the Apostle Society in the largely urban setting of the Good Shepherd Parish, La Libertad. “It’s a vast area, where thousand of people live side by side in cane shacks,” he explains. “There is no work, no money, health facilities and worse of all, nowhere to grow crops for self-sufficiency ”

Against this grinding poverty, the priest has organized several relief programs. A fortnightly ration distribution scheme attempts to feed 2,000 people for two weeks at a cost of €2,000. He also runs medicine purchasing program for malnourished babies and small children, a daily breakfast program for children who arrive hungry at school, clothing supplies and assist with cane house construction.
“Every cent raised goes direct to people in dire poverty. There are no Read more

By Christy Parker | Photo: Michael Hussey (YoughalOnline.com)

Christy Parker talks to a Youghal priest now dedicated to helping Ecuador’s poor

The earnest tones of Youghal-born priest Fr. John Keane will address Mass goers in his native town over the month’s final weekend. The former Dungourney curate is on a working vacation from his Ecuador mission and is seeking some urgent funding to assist his work amongst the “poorest of the poor.” He describes the region on Ecuador’s west coast as a place of “no wealth, no jobs, no land to cultivate; just a daily struggle to survive.”

Ecuador is not the first place to test the durability of Fr. Keane. The eldest of five children born to the late John and Norah of Emmet Place, he moved to Belfast soon after his ordination in 1982. The hunger strikes were in full flow. “I saw a lot of bigotry and hatred and the soldiers were often very hostile,” he recalls. He compromised his comfort by Read more