Our Priests

Rev Fr Hyacinth Igwenagu OGBODO C.S.Sp.

Parish Priest

Father Hyacinth also served in his religious order, the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, in Nigeria. He began as a member of the Provincial Council (Provincial Leadership Team, PLT) and later served two consecutive terms as Provincial Superior of the Congregation's South West Province of Nigeria, each lasting three years.

Upon completing his second term as Provincial Superior, he was assigned to the United Kingdom. While there, he served as Assistant Parish Priest at St. Mary Magdalene RC Church in Brockley and as Parochial Administrator at St. John Fisher RC Church in Kidbrooke.

In recognition of his service, Archbishop Peter Smith appointed him as the Parish Priest of Our Lady of Grace, Charlton, effective 1st September 2018, succeeding Fr. Josephat Ezeanolue C.S.Sp. On 1st September 2022, Fr. Hyacinth was appointed Parish Priest of St. Joseph's RC Church in Shooters Hill, taking over from Fr. Sebasebamalai. Currently, Fr. Hyacinth serves as the Parish Priest for Our Lady of Grace, Charlton, and St. Joseph's, Shooters Hill.

SPIRITAN FOUNDERS

Claude-François Poullart des Places, 1679-1709

Francis Mary Paul Libermann, 1802-1852

Claude-François Poullart des Places, the founder of the Holy Ghost Fathers, was born in 1679 into a well-off aristocratic family at Rennes in Brittany and was given a good religious and secular education by the Jesuits. At the age of 20, having graduated with honours in Law and with a good marriage lined up by his family, He felt called to the priesthood and left all this security behind to follow the uncertain search for God.

He began his studies in the College of Louis le Grand in the Latin Quarter of Paris. He had no shortage of funds, but soon discovered that some students were living in crushing poverty, and decided to help one of them. One thing led to another: he left his comfortable lodgings to live with ten destitute scholars, sharing their extreme poverty, and begging on their behalf for leftovers from the kitchen of his old college.

Aged 23, he founded the Community of the Holy Spirit to give these penniless future priests a training that was better and longer than their contemporaries. In return he asked that they would commit themselves to accepting the most difficult tasks where others refused to go. They referred to themselves as Spiritans, the name we still proudly carry today.

At the age of 29, his identification with the poor reached its completion. During the exceptionally hard winter of 1709, he gave everything he had to the others and succumbed to the epidemic that hit Paris and was buried in a pauper's grave. In serving the poor, he became the poorest of all, giving himself totally, not just for humanitarian reasons but above all, in imitation of Jesus. Shortly after his death, his small congregation was given the task of training and supplying priests for the French colonies in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, and so a commitment to overseas Missions began.

In 1848, a new missionary Congregation founded by Francis Libermann, a convert Jew from Saverne, was united with the foundation of Poullart des Places to form The Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. While continuing with the training of priests for overseas, this new Religious family concentrated on sharing the message of Jesus with those who had not yet heard it, above all, the people of Africa.

Libermann encouraged his followers “Do not preach about God's Love, but show it by how we live. Listen to their needs and dreams, and help them achieve them.” This finds us working in education, farming, development, technical training and social work, helping communities and society to become self sufficient and self respecting. Today we number around 3,000 members, half of whom are from Africa and elsewhere in the southern hemisphere, working in 65 countries around the world.

We continue to be asked to go “where others will not go, and do the work that others do not want.” We continue to live and work according to the vision of Des Place and Libermann. We thank God for the countless blessings he has given to our family over the last 312 years. We will continue to go where others will not go and help the disadvantaged and victims of the world to find self respect and self sufficiency.

Today in the UK we number 49 with communities in London, Manchester, Salford, Chester & Carfin, Scotland. We serve parishes in London (Archway; Charlton; New Barnet & South Norwood), Leicester, West Midlands (Smethwick & West Bromwich), Bakewell /Hassop in Derbyshire, Manchester and the Isle of Man. We also work with schools and Youth through "JustYouth" and "CRISP", and Refugees & Asylum seekers through our organisation "REVIVE", in the Manchester region. In London the "Kairos Community Trust", set up by Spiritan Fr. John Kitchen, cares for those with Drug & Alcohol addiction.

British Spiritans currently work also in Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, Australia, and the USA. Worldwide, over 3000 Spiritans work in over 60 countries on every continent.