Apostolic visitor from South Africa

by Letters Editor · July 12, 2010

From Paul Taylor, Johannesburg:

Your report �Pope�s high-powered team to help Irish Church in crisis� (June 9) refers . Your readers might be interested to learn that the two priests appointed by the Holy Father as apostolic visitors to the male religious orders are Fr Joseph Tobin CSsR, an American who is the immediate past Superior General of�the Redemptorists, and Jesuit Father Gero McLoughlin, a South African and past pupil�of St Aidan�s College in Grahamstown, where he was educated by the Jesuits from 1952-60.

Having entered the Society in 1961, Fr McLoughlin was ordained to the priesthood in 1975 in the cathedral of Christ the King in Johannesburg by the late Bishop Hugh Boyle.

For most of his priestly life,�Fr McLoughlin�s�apostolate has�been the promotion of Ignatian Spirituality, and presently he�is the promoter of Ignatian Spirituality in the British Jesuit Province. He resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Fr McLoughlin�s father was also an alumnus of St Aidan�s College. He served as a director of The Catholic Newspaper and Publishing Co. Ltd � which publishes The Southern Cross � from the late 1930s to early-mid �40s, following in the footsteps of his father, AP McLoughlin, who in his time served the company both as a director�and as�its chairman.

In passing it is also interesting to note that in May 1931 both AP McLoughlin�and his wife� Norah were �received� into the�Redemptorist order as lay associates by the then-Superior General of the order, Fr Patrick Murray.