Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

About the Oblates – home page

France was a shattered society when Eugene de Mazenod gathered around him a group of like-minded priests. They would go the poorest people in the land to remind them of their human dignity, announce again the message of Jesus Christ and help them to a new way of life.

This enthusiastic group became the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1826. Despite being a small number, Eugene sent his missionaries to the furthest reaches of the world: To the poor in Canada and on the Texas / Mexican border; to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and South Africa. Oblates first came to the UK in 1841 and to Ireland in 1856. At Eugene de Mazenod’s canonisation in December 1995, Pope John Paul II said of him: “he had a heart as big as the world”.

Over 4000 Oblate priests and brothers are to be found today in more than 60 countries of the world. Oblates from Ireland and the UK are missionaries in Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, United States and Canada.

Oblates exercise very diverse ministries but above all seek to dedicate themselves to the poor and abandoned. One can thus find Oblates in Britain and Ireland working in parishes, in missionary formation, preaching, social justice and pastoral ministries, or prisons. “No ministry is alien to us as long as we never lose sight of the main purpose of the Congregation: the evangelization of the most abandoned.” ~ Oblate Constitutions and Rules.