Nairobi (Fides Service) - This year, 2003, the Mill Hill Missionaries are celebrating a hundred years of service in Kenya. To mark the occasion a series of events have been planned in various parts of the country. On March 15 there will be a celebration of the Eucharist at Holy Family Basilica, Nairobi, presided by Archbishop Raphael Ndingi, mwana 'a Nzeki of Nairobi. The first Mill Hill Missions were set up in 1903. Work for their arrival began in 1894 when Propaganda Fidei, (today the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples) assigned to them the Vicariate Apostolic of the Upper Nile. This included the territory east of Kampala which now is covered by the Ugandan dioceses of Lugazi, Jinja, Tororo and Soroti and the western half of Kenya.
The first group of missionaries landed on the coast of present day Kenya in 1895, led by Bishop Henry Hanlon MHM. They walked from Mombasa to Kampala, the capital of present day Uganda and began their work of evangelisation. They started a mission in Mumias (now within the diocese of Kakamega) and later one in Kisumu (now archdiocese of Kisumu). In succeeding years the Mill Hill Missionaries played a great part in setting up what are now the diocese of Bungoma, Kitale, Eldoret, Kakamega, Kisumu, Kisii, Homer Bay, Kericho and Nakuru. Their charism was to build up the local Church so that apart from setting up parishes they also set up seminaries in Kenya and Uganda for the training of priests. Many of the Bishops in Western Kenya were trained in the then Mill Hill Seminary of Ggaba, Kampala. They also helped to establish religious congregations of women - Sisters of St Joseph of Asumbi, the Sisters of Mary of Kakamega, and the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Nkokonjeru (Uganda). Much of the evangelisation work was carried out by lay catechists, who were trained at the Catechists' Formation Centre in Mumias set up again by the Mill Hill Missionaries. Many primary and secondary schools were opened by Mill Hill missionaries and also teacher training colleges, hospitals and clinics. Today there are 40 Mill Hill priests working in Kenya, 9 Brothers, 5 lay associates and two students for the priesthood, a total of 56. There is also a small group in Ngong diocese which has had a Mill Hill Bishop since its inception 40 years ago. Recently a new Mill Hill Bishop was ordained, Bishop Cornelius Schilder. The Mill Hill Missionaries were founded by Fr Herbert Vaughan, who later became a cardinal, in England, in the 1860s. It was a time when Catholics in England were a small unpopular minority. The Catholic hierarchy there had just been re-established. Fr Vaughn started the College for Foreign Missions at Halcomb House, Mill Hill on March 19, 1966, the solemnity of St Joseph. See Mill Hill web site for more information www.milhillmissionaries.org (Fides Service 3/3/2003 EM lines 32 Words: 484)