Fr Fritz's fascinating African letters
WEXFORD FRANCISCAN FRIAR LAUNCHES NEW BOOK
Wednesday November 16 2011
A FASCINATING book by a Wexford friar about his life as a missionary priest in Africa will be launched at the Riverbank House Hotel this Thursday, November 17, at 7 p.m.
Love From Zambia by Fr Fritz O'kelly OFMCONV is based on letters he wrote from Africa to friends over a period of 20 years from 1978 to 2008.
It will be officially launched by the Bishop of Ferns Dr Denis Brennan, with the Mayor of Wexford Cllr David Hynes and Fr Paul Miskiewicz, provincial delegate of the Conventual Franciscans, among the invited guests.
Fr Fritz (85) has been based at the Friary in Wexford for the past four years and is highlyregarded among his parishioners.
Many of them will be intrigued to read about his previous life in Africa, where he was a Greyfriar missionary for over 40 years.
He also spent three years in Australia and 12 years in England.
Fr Fritz was raised in Cork and Limerick, the son of a German mother and Irish father.
As a teenager he was an interpreter for the 168 German navy soldiers brought from the Bay of Biscay into Cobh, Co. Cork, by the Wexford ship The Kerlogue in 1943.
On Sunday last he attended a wreath-laying ceremony by the German ambassador at a German military cemetery in Glencree, Co. Wicklow.
Two of the young sailors he befriended, Adolf Bratz and Helmut Weiss, are buried there.
Fr Fritz became an accountant before joining the Conventual Franciscan order at the age of 23.
He studied for seven years in Italy in preparation for his ordination before spending a lifetime serving the poorest of the poor.
Love From Zambia also contains many interesting photographs from Fr Fritz's younger days, his time as a missionary in Africa, and as a friar in Wexford.
Proceeds from the book will go to the Conventual Franciscan missions.
- MARIA PEPPER
