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This week’s missionary hero is Fr. Declan Collins, a Salesian missionary priest from Baltray, County Louth in Ireland.
Declan worked in banking before he joined the Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB). He was ordained a priest in 1990 and, the following year, went to South Africa as a missionary priest.
For the next eleven years, Fr. Declan served various communities in both South Africa and Swaziland. In Cape Town, for example, he was a strong advocate for homeless children and adults and lobbied on their behalf. Because the pressure he put on public officials, five city traffic officers were charged with torturing citizens.
Fr. Declan was also a strong voice against gangs, making him an enemy of gangs.
On November 16, 2002, Fr. Declan was putting finishing touches on a new multi-purpose hall in Ennerdale, an Indian township near Johannesburg where he was serving. He was found with multiple wounds and died as a result of them. Police believe the killing may have been because of his anti-gang crusade.
Fr. Declan Collins’ family set up the Declan Collins Trust in his memory to keep his work alive for the people of the community.
