Kildare Ministries Newsletter – July 2018

Kildare Ministries was officially launched in Melbourne on 18 March, 2014 and in Sydney on 31st March, 2014. It comprises the educational and community works formerly governed by the New South Wales Province of the Brigidine Congregation, the Victorian Province of the Brigidine Congregation (www.brigidine.org.au) and the Presentation Congregation of Victoria (www.presentationsociety.org.au).

Kildare Ministries has received the authority to act as a Church body (Public Juridic Person). Significantly, this new structure will involve people at all level of governance of its educational and community works.  The collaboration and participation by lay colleagues reflects the response to the call of Vatican II for religious to rethink the sharing of mission and to recognise the call of all the baptised to contribute to the leadership of the Church.

Kildare Ministries takes its name from the Irish Cill Dara, Church of the Oak.  It links to the spiritual heritage of St Brigid, Patroness of Ireland, and to the ancient order of St Brigid of Kildare, which existed in Ireland from the fifth until the sixteenth century, when the monasteries were suppressed. Bishop Delany chose St Brigid as patroness of the Congregation he re-founded in 1807.

The name Kildare is also significant to the Presentation Congregation.  Presentation Sisters from Kildare in Ireland, established a foundation in Wagga NSW in 1874 and from there they established a community in Elsternwick, Melbourne.