The Columban Region of Oceania is undergoing profound change. It is not evolution but revolution. With fewer priests and an aging membership, we face a critical question: How do we create a sustainable Columban missionary presence in Oceania for the years ahead?
To respond, we engaged a facilitator and undertook a year-long planning process. Every Columban in the Region was invited to participate in several online sessions. Our facilitator travelled to each city where Columbans serve - Labasa, Lower Hutt, Melbourne, Suva and Sydney - meeting individually with ordained members, lay missionaries and lay co-workers. From these conversations, she identified six major themes: Columban missionary identity, mission priorities, structures for mission, succession in mission, formation for mission, and mission support. Working groups formed around each theme, praying and reflecting in order to propose concrete steps for change.
In April, we gathered at a Conference Centre in Melbourne for the culmination of this process. We considered the gathering so important that we covered travel and accommodation costs to ensure everyone could meet face to face. It was the first in person assembly of all Columbans in the Region of Oceania - historic in itself after years of relying on Zoom.
It was also prophetic. Ordained members, lay missionaries, and lay co-workers sat together as equals, discussing, praying and discerning the future of Columban mission. This represented a dramatic shift. When I first joined the Columbans, priests sat at every desk in the mission offices, while the “ladies” worked as secretaries, unseen and unheard. Today, lay professionals sit at those desks and lead communications, mission education, fundraising, and administration. The ordained now serve as “auxiliaries,” offering stories, inspiration, and pastoral presence. The roles of ordained and lay have been completely reversed.
The gathering was deeply synodal. There was no distinction between ordained and lay. All shared equally in discernment, grounded in our common baptism and our resulting identity as “missionary disciples.” Within that shared calling, vocations differ: ordained members commit their lives to God, the Church, the Society, and one another; lay missionaries serve full time on three or six year contracts; lay co-workers contribute through their professional roles while balancing marriage, family and other commitments. These diverse vocations - men and women, single and married, lay and ordained - enrich the Church’s mission and energised our Regional Gathering.
What did we decide? We chose life. We chose a future. We placed our trust in God’s guidance and committed ourselves to deepening the partnership between the ordained and laity. We affirmed the need for greater lay leadership, including real decision making authority. We agreed to reshape our structures to reflect this synodal vision. We pledged to honour the diversity of cultures, countries, and contexts in which we live and work, and to build local Columban communities that serve mission. We celebrated the blessings of our past, let go of what no longer serves us, and embraced a new and different future.
Much work now lies ahead: drafting statutes and job descriptions, consulting canon and civil lawyers, and ensuring our structures meet constitutional and legal requirements. The future is unknown. Our situation is unlike any other Region or Mission Unit in the Society. We are attempting something unprecedented, something boldly missionary - launching out into the deep.
Please pray for us: that we may remain open to the Spirit, faithful to Christ’s mission, and courageous in shaping the future entrusted to us through baptism.
Rev Dr Patrick McInerney
Regional Director of Oceania
directoroceania@columban.org.au
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - July 2026
