Detroit — An increased focus on living out the charism of their founder will be an important theme for local Irish Palloottines, says Fr. Noel O’Connor, SAC, the Pallottines’ new director of mission promotion in the U.S.A.

Learn more For information on events or the work of the Irish Pallottines, call (734) 285-2966. To support their missionary work in East Africa, send donations to Pallottine Missionary Center, 4214 Orange St., Wyandotte 48192

The Irish Pallottines staff St. Joseph Parish, Wyandotte, and St. Anne Parish, Ortonville; work in campus ministry at the University of Michigan; and have their U.S. headquarters in Wyandotte.

They are following a 2003 Vatican directive that they re-focus on the ideas of St. Vincent Pallotti (1795-1850) about collaboration with and encouragement of the laity in the work of the Church, explains Fr. O’Connor, 58, a native of County Tipperary, Ireland.

“St. Vincent Pallott, believed that every person is called to holiness, and to an interior life of holiness.”

To that end, a Union of Catholic Apostolate  group of priests and lay people now meets once a month at the Pallottines’ center in Wyandotte.

The Irish Pallottines are best known for their missionary work in Tanzania and Kenya in East Africa,. Fr. O’Connor says he is hoping to raise money to help support the education of priests in Africa, where the Pallottines currently have 28 men in formation.

A dinner-dance planned for Friday, Nov. 4, will give people a chance to help.

Fr. O’Connor served in Tanzania from 1983-2000, and from 2000-10 in Kenya.