By Tim Keenan | The Michigan Catholic

Local fathers head to Japan, South Pacific to spread the Good News

DETROIT — Former Detroit Archbishop Adam Cardinal Maida once called foreign missionaries “heroes of the Church” due to their willingness to endure hardships and risk martyrdom in an effort to bring the Good News to people all over the world.

While many Detroit-area Catholics consider their parish priests to be heroes for spreading the Gospel locally, the archdiocese is also home to many missionary priests whose work might not be as noticeable to those in the pews — but who are certainly every bit the hero.

Among them are Fr. Ken Mazur, regional superior of the Detroit-based PIME Missionaries, and Fr. Michael Sheehy, of the Dearborn Heights-based Mariannhill Missionaries.

A Metro Detroit native, Fr. Mazur is one of a dozen PIME Missionaries in the Archdiocese of Detroit. Five are assigned to parishes, and seven work and live at PIME’s local headquarters on the city’s west side.

PIME, which is the Latin acronym for Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, is an international society of apostolic life with more than 400 priests and 25 brothers who dedicate their lives to the mission among non-Christians in 17 different countries. It was established in Italy in 1850 and came to Detroit in 1947 at the invitation of another former Detroit archbishop, Edward Cardinal Mooney.

Fr. Mazur, 56, was born in northwest Detroit and grew up in St. Gerard Parish. He entered PIME’s SS. Peter and Paul High School in Newark, Ohio, in 1970 at age 14. He was ordained in 1982 and spent the first eight years of his ministry as dean of students and principal of his alma mater.

In 1991, he received his first missionary assignment in Yokohama City, Japan. Two years of language school was followed by two years as assistant pastor in Yamato City, then six and a half years as pastor in Atsugi City and finally two years as pastor in Futamatagawa, Yokohama City.

“When most people think of foreign missions, they think of Third World countries and social works,” said Fr. Mazur. “The work of evangelization, however, is not about being a social worker, it is about being someone who proclaims the Gospel by the way he or she lives and the words that Jesus speaks. In Japan, the Gospel is not well known. Even if most Japanese know culturally who Jesus is, they don’t know what he taught, how he lived, and what he taught us.”

Fr. Mazur said missionaries in Japan might not encounter the severe hunger, lack of education and/or medical need seen in other missionary posts, but “they do encounter a lack of knowledge and understanding of who Jesus Christ is, and His presence and love for them,” he said.

He returned to the United States in 2004 and was named director of the PIME Mission Center in Detroit. The following year, he was elected the PIME Regional Superior for the North America. He was re-elected in 2009.

Fr. Sheehy, 75, is a native of Quebec and is one of seven Mariannhill priests and two brother missionaries residing in Dearborn Heights. Locally, they conduct retreats for youth groups and assist in archdiocesan parishes. Founded in France in 1879, the Mariannhill Missionaries are presently serving in nine countries.

Fr. Sheehy met a Mariannhill priest while a child, and that priest persuaded him to attend the Mariannhill high school in Sherbrooke, Quebec. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1964 and, like Fr. Mazur, served at his alma mater for a time, 14 years, before getting his first true missionary assignment.

“I thought I’d join a missionary order and go to the missions, but I ended up staying in Canada for a while,” Fr. Sheehy said. “I figured my mission was preparing others to go to the missions.”

Finally in 1980, he spent a year in a large town in Papua New Guinea. During that time he spent Holy Week on the country’s outlying Siassi islands. Then he was called back in 1984 and spent 11 years in a town called Lae in charge of the cathedral there, visiting the sick in a local hospital and as Catholic chaplain of a group ministering to sea farers. After his time in Papua New Guinea and before coming to Detroit in 2007, Fr. Sheehy spent time back in Sherbrooke and Quebec City.

“I felt very comfortable there,” Fr. Sheehy recalled of Papua New Guinea. “Since the locals were Lutheran and we were careful not to try to bring Lutherans into the Catholic Church, we were really helping those from far away who came to town to work or for their education.

“In the islands in the South Pacific, there are 300 people and the priest lives on a separate island and the people come to church and school in dug-out canoes,” he said.

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Tim Keenan is a freelance writer from Dearborn.