The late Fr Christopher Fox
The death has taken place of the Westmeath-born priest Fr Christopher Fox, who was approaching the 67th anniversary of his ordination as a member of the Mill Hill Fathers.
A native of Killeenbrack, Boher, Fr Fox yesterday, Monday March 14, peacefully at St James’s Hospital in Dublin.
He would have been 91 years old next month.
A deeply devout, sincere and kind man, he exemplified all that a life of ministry should be: one marked by goodness, service, compassion, humility and leadership. At the same time, he was a man with a great sense of humour and with an upbeat personality.
Fr Fox was educated at Boher NS and then at St Joseph's school in Freshford before joining the Mill Hill Order. The Order sent him in 1949 to Roosendaal, Holland, to study philosophy, and for his theological education he progressed to Saint Joseph’s College, Mill Hill, London (1951-1955). As his preparatory education came to an end, he took the Perpetual Oath to God in the Missionary Society on May 5 1954, and just over a year later, on July 10 1955, he was ordained a Mill Hill priest at the hands of Cardinal Griffin in the college chapel at Mill Hill.
The first appointment Fr Fox received was to join the teaching staff in Freshford. There he continued his education too, becoming qualified as a teacher of Science.
In 1961, to Fr Fox’s delight, he was appointed to work in Tororo, Uganda. He had one year of pastoral work there before being seconded onto the staff of St Pius X Seminary at Nagongera. By 1967, he was back in his native Ireland working as Vocation Director, based in Dartry, Dublin.
In 1972, Fr Fox was promoted to National Director of Vocations in Ireland by the Irish hierarchy, an appointment that was renewed twice.
He longed to return to East Africa, and so, in 1981 he was again appointed to Tororo Diocese, Uganda. There he completed his studies for a Masters degree in Sacred Theology in 1982. In 1988 he was elected a Chapter Delegate. In 1987 he became the first Society Representative for Uganda. He was re-elected to that post in 1990. In 1994, he was elected again to represent Uganda at the Mill Hill General Chapter. Fr Fox was instrumental in establishing the Philosophical Centre (PCJ) in Jinja.
After a short home leave, Fr Fox was appointed onto the staff of the Faith and Mission Renewal Programme at Navan. He had a brief return to Uganda in 1995, where he assisted with Renewal Courses. By October 1996 he left Uganda to work as Rector in Courtfield, the ancestral home of the Mill Hill founder.
In 2003 Fr Fox was appointed to work in the Irish Region, initially as rector at Kilkenny and editor of the Saint Joseph’s Advocate magazine. While doing all these tasks he found time to do some organising/promotion work in Ireland too. Towards the end of 2008 Fr Fox entered into an active retirement in Saint Joseph’s House, Orwell Park, Dartry, Dublin.
Never one to rest too long, he continued to study aspects of Ignatian Spirituality, Counselling and Spiritual Direction, gifts that he freely and generously shared with his fellow clergy, religious and laity at home and abroad.
Fr Fox wrote extensively on religious topics and published a number of books of religious reflections and also an autobiography.
He was son of the late Michael and Mary Jane Fox, and was predeceased by brothers Tom and Michael, and his sisters Mary Jane Carton and Sr Catherine as well as by his half-siblings Alexander, Owen and Nelly (Heduan). He is survived and sadly missed by his sister Teresa Moran (Navan), his many nieces and nephews, cousins and other relatives and his Mill Hill Missionary colleagues, friends and staff at St Joseph’s House Mill Hill Missionaries, Dublin.
Fr Fox’s remains are reposing tomorrow, Wednesday March 16, at Fanagan’s Funeral Home, Aungier St, Dublin from 2pm until 6pm.
The removal is on Friday morning, March 18, from St Joseph’s House, Orwell Park arriving for the funeral Mass at 11am in St Joseph’s Church, Terenure followed by burial at Bohernabreena Cemetery.
The Mass may be viewed on https://www.stjosephsterenure.com/live-mass.
A strikingly tall man, Fr Fox was a passionate Westmeath advocate and was deeply attached to Boher and Ballymore, and delighted always when asked to fill in in the parish.
He was a great raconteur, and had some great tales to tell, including that of his own father, Michael Fox – who, believe it or not, was born in the late 1850s.
In 1877, Michael, at just 19, set off from Killeenbrack for the town of Pergamino, about three hours west of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires.
Ten years later, he decided to make a. visit home to Ireland, and on the way, found, himself a job travelling with a ‘Wild West’ show which the legendary Buffalo Bill had set up to show the Old World what the untamed Western United States was really like.
The show featured Indian tepees, live buffaloes and pony express riders. There were 150 Indians, including the famous Sitting Bull, the Sioux chief whose refusal, eleven years previously to move to a reservation, sparked the famous army attack led by General George A Custer at the Little Bighorn River in 1876. Sioux warriors, in that battle, killed. Custer and all 226 of his men.
Michael returned to Argentina and would likely have stayed there but for the death of his brother who was farming the family land at Killeenbrack, and so in 1900, he moved back to Ireland.
Six years later, at the age of 48, he married his first wife and the couple had three children before her premature death just five years later. In 1918, on the eve of his sixtieth, birthday, Michael Fox married his second wife, Mary Jane Mulvany and went on to raise a second family, of six children, the youngest of whom was Fr Christopher.
In an interview with this newspaper some years back, Fr Fox said it was a source of great happiness to him that when be celebrated his first Mass, in St Brigid's Church, Boher on July 13 1955, his father, then aged 97, was able — despite his great age — to walk up to the altar to take communion from him.
Fr Fox had very happy memories of his days growing up in Killeenbrack, and of attending Boher National School, where he was taught by Master Kavanagh.
Through the influence of Master Kavanagh he came to enroll in the FCA – a day before his twelfth birthday, and four years before he was actually eligible to join at all.
“The Master was a company commander, and having scoured the highways and byways, he still only had 49 men, and he couldn’t get a fiftieth, which he needed for a company,” Fr Fox recalled.
“On April 12 1943, he asked me what age I was, and I said I was twelve tomorrow, and he said ‘I’ll put you down as sixteen’, and he took me next door and rigged me out in a tunic, and for a whole year and a half before I went to boarding school I enjoyed the experience of a man's world while still a kid.”
Fr Fox was a keen sportsman, and was a member of the Boher Senior Football team, which reached the semi-final of the Westmeath Senior Football Championship in 1957, losing to the Athlone team which went on to win the county title.
Fr Fox lived through two coups in Uganda, and said he was not ashamed of admitting to sharing in the general sense of terror which prevailed in a country which endured the horrendous and torturous reign of the notorious dictator Idi Amin.
It was In the 1960s that Fr Fox went to Uganda for the first time, but It was entirely different when he returned there in 1982: “I had worked there for six years in the 1960s,” he recalled. “It was lovely, because it was a peaceful time. But going back in 1982, the country was totally terrorised. It was the remnants of the Amin era. He had been kicked out, and Obote, who replaced him, was not much better, and so that was a very unsettled time to go there.
"There was a lot of poverty, and insecurity and violence. Two of our priests were murdered after the fall of Amin, although generally, missionaries were highly respected by all sides. The Church is highly regarded, and during the worst period, was a. lifeline for all people, but going back to that situation, you felt kind of helpless.
"I remember once asking an old man: ‘What can I do?' and he said: 'The very fact that you are here is a. sign of hope for us’.
“And that is a missionary's role: it's a source of hope, and your presence among them is a great source of help, and because we are part of an international order, it means there's always a link to the world outside. "'
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis