After his expulsion from China by the communist authorities there, Columban Co-Founder Bishop Edward J. Galvin landed in San Francisco in December 1952 after a sea voyage from Hong Kong.
Bishop Galvin had just passed his 70th birthday, but despite his age and the hardships he endured in China, the veteran bishop was determined to continue his work, albeit outside of China.
Unfortunately, while Bishop Galvin was in Hong Kong, a medical examination revealed that he had leukemia, and doctors in California confirmed this diagnosis.
Bishop Galvin brushed it off; he simply would not be stopped from promoting the Society that he had founded. He traveled tirelessly around the U.S., doing promotional work for the Columbans.
By mid-1954, however, Bishop Galvin’s ailment was taking its toll, and the Columban founder returned to Ireland in May 1954 to finish out his life in his beloved homeland.
The end came during the early morning of February 23, 1956 at Dalgan Park in Navan.
The great missionary Bishop Galvin was gone. Nonetheless, his legacy would inspire generations of Columban missionaries, and the Society that he started would live on to influence the world.
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The Columbans are a society of missionaries, including priests and lay people, who minister to people of various cultures as a way of witnessing to the universal love of God.