His ministry has taken him to several, often dangerous, countries around the world, but 50 years after joining the Jesuits Fr Peter Hosking SJ now finds himself back serving where it all began, reports The Southern Cross.
Enjoying the beautiful view of the Adelaide hills to one side and city skyline to the other, Fr Peter Hosking looks pretty content to be back home at Saint Ignatius’ College.
Fr Peter Hosking is celebrating 50 years since he joined the Society of Jesus. PHOTO: Randy Larcombe/The Southern Cross.
Not that he remains still for very long to enjoy the view. You can sense his quick mind is continually ticking over and the paperwork on his desk indicates there is not time for too much relaxation. However, being busy and on the move has been a hallmark of his 50 years with the Jesuits.
Serving as the rector at Saint Ignatius’ since 2018, Fr Peter has settled back into life in the city where he grew up. He has resumed his Port Power supporter status – having changed allegiance to Collingwood while living in Victoria – and is enjoying the bushwalks along the nearby trails.
In the decades away from Adelaide he has worked in numerous countries including the Philippines, Thailand, East Timor and El Salvador, in a range of different capacities. Each came with their own complex challenges, but he always remained true to his vow of obedience and served wherever needed at the time.
“I’ve always thought that the Order has suited me, and I’ve really appreciated the opportunity to serve in different parts of the world,” he explained during a break in his school commitments.
“The criteria of going where the need is most great and the lack of others to respond, and where we have got skills to serve in other ways, has fitted me well.”
Joining the Jesuits was not really on his mind as a young teenager, even though the Jesuits provided a strong influence throughout his schooling.
His parents were members of the Dulwich parish and he has fond memories of heading to the Rock Mass at the Cathedral on a Sunday afternoon with his sister and her friends from Loreto College and his mates from school. While the girls would attend the Mass, the boys would kick the footy on the lawns outside and wait for a briefing on the homily – in case they were asked later!
“There was definitely a Catholic culture in Adelaide in the 60s and I made a lot of friends through the faith, but I was pretty agnostic,” he admitted.
“But in my last year of school I got friendly with some Jesuit scholastics (Jesuits in training) and I began to interrogate the rationality of religion…the bioethics, the social ethics and they had a very good perspective on it.
“Gradually God became real and somewhere along the way I learned to pray. It was an intimate conversation with God and the kind of joy and consolation I felt was as deep as with my closest friends or a person that I was dating at the time.
“God became so real that I could commit my life to that.”
So on February 23 1975, straight after completing high school, he began his training with the Jesuits. The intake that year included nine other men, one being Fr Frank Brennan who remains a good friend to this day.
The lengthy training program was based in Melbourne and Sydney and his spiritual formation included placements in hospitals where he supported people who were dying and working with the homeless on the streets.
He was also required to undertake tertiary study and as the group already boasted three with law degrees, he opted for clinical psychology, completing his master’s in the mid 1980s.
Since his ordination as a priest in 1987, Fr Peter has remained dedicated to both his religious vocation and his work in psychology, with a commitment to “spirituality, social justice and community service”.
In his early years as a priest he worked closely with refugees and asylum seekers in Australia and overseas.
From 1989 to 1995 he was director of the Jesuit Refugee Service and then spent two years working in East Timor during the upheaval of the country’s referendum for independence.
His skills as a clinical psychologist saw him taking up psychosocial, advocacy and policy roles with refugees in Thailand, the Philippines and for shorter periods in Aceh after the tsunami and the Solomon Islands following civil conflict.
Never one to worry about the dangers involved with working in a volatile country, he visited El Salvador in 1990, following the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter by the military.
There he learned about the “incredible resilience of the human spirit”.
“A lot of people were tortured in El Salvador and that was a very confronting reality,” he said.
“I’ve had some of the most powerful experience of people’s goodness amongst people who have absolutely nothing and have been really brutalised.”
His interest in people’s wellbeing and social policy led to him joining the Jesuit Social Services as a psychologist team leader and clinical supervisor from 1997-2004. Based at Connexions, he worked with young adults with mental health and substance abuse issues. He addressed similar issues in Kings Cross, Sydney.
Taking his ministry in a different direction Fr Peter also worked in Melbourne, serving as the parish priest of Richmond from 1997-2001.
Being asked to move into the Provincial Office was a bolt out of the blue, but Fr Peter was happy to serve where needed. Reflecting on this time he said it was an opportunity to gain skills in the areas of leadership, strategy, risk, management and communications – skills that have been very useful ever since.
When the position of rector at St Aloysius’ College in Milsons Point, NSW, needed to be filled in 2011, he again changed direction and put up his hand to serve in the Jesuits’ education ministries.
“I was working in the Provincial Office and they needed a rector and I said, I suppose I could help with that – and it’s been so good,” he enthused.
Now having moved back to the familiar surroundings of Saint Ignatius’ College – although admittedly there has been extensive development at the school and surrounding suburbs since he graduated – he continues to be full of praise for the youth of today.
“Working as a rector you suddenly realise that it’s a good place to be because you’re with young people and they are going to create the future. It’s a very generative experience.
“They have a great capacity to do really good things for the world. Our challenge is how do we support them, calm them, keep their hope.”
As for his own future, who knows what will be asked of him next? One thing is for sure, just as has been the case for the past 50 years, Fr Peter will be ready and willing to serve God wherever he is called.
This article by Lindy McNamara was published in The Southern Cross, the publication of the Archdiocese of Adelaide.