University receives historical missionary letter collection
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 | Archivist of the Marist Fathers, Oceania Province, Father Roger McCarrick presents the ten-volume set of ‘Lettres Recues d’Oceania, 1836-1854’ to the University Library, Sin Joan Yee and other Library staff. |
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The University of the South Pacific’s Library - one of the largest in the region - now proudly hosts a collection of letters written by the first South West Pacific Catholic Missionaries from 1836 to 1854.
The Marist Fathers of the Province of Oceania presented a complete ten-volume set of ‘Lettres Recues d’Oceania, 1836-1854’ to the Library on 26 March, 2013.
“The original letters were handwritten in French and give wonderfully revealing pictures of the people and cultures of this part of the world in the mid-19th century,” said Father Roger McCarrick, the Archivist of the Marist Fathers, Oceania Province.
“The letters, for the most part, were addressed to Religious Superiors in France and to officials of the Catholic Church in Rome, as well as to family members and friends,” he added.
The work of transcribing all of the original manuscripts was undertaken by an American Marist priest, Father Charles Gerard.
“We hope that this donation will be a truly worthwhile addition to your Library and that students, researchers, and all interested people will draw rich rewards from reading of the joys and sorrows, the heroic accomplishments and the disappointments, but most of all, the work undertaken in God’s name by those who had left their own countries with little hope of ever returning in order to bring news of something beautiful,” Father McCarrick said.
The University Librarian, Sin Joan Yee, thanked the Marist Fathers for the donation on behalf of the University and the Library.
“We would like to congratulate the Marist Fathers and Father Charles Gerard for undertaking and completing the mammoth task of transcribing and annotating these valuable letters, and for making them available as published documents,” she said.
Yee elaborated that the letters will help University staff, researchers, and students to better understand and appreciate the lives and cultures of Pacific Islanders and the work and lives of missionaries who had left their homes to work in the Pacific in the mid-19th century.
The collection will be housed in the Library’s Pacific Collection at the Laucala Campus in Suva.
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