Missionary is promoted

FR JOHN Corcoran was recently appointed as National Director of the Pontifical Mission-Aid Societies in England and Wales in the footsteps of the late Monsignor Canon Mark Swaby.
Born in 1944 and ordained at Ushaw College, Durham in 1969, Fr Corcoran went to the diocese of Kisumu in Kenya in 1975.
From 1981 until 1985, he was the Salford Diocesan Director, Overseas Mission of the Church and was a member of the National Missionary Council and of the Bishops' Conference Committee for Overseas Mission.
Founder of the magazine Haramba, the official journal of the Overseas Mission of the Church, Fr Corcoran returned as a Fidei Donum priest to the same diocese of Kisumu in Kenya in 1986.
As director of the Mission Aid Societies, Fr Corcoran will be one of 100 priests like him around the world overseeing 924 dioceses under the care of the Special Congregation in Rome for the evangelisation of peoples.
His task will consist of the promotion of mission awareness in terms of spiritual and financial support for churches in the Third World, and as director of societies such as the Association of the Propagation of the Faith and Society of St Peter Apostle, he will be involved in the work of evangelisation and of training priests in the Third World.