Northland Irish Priest Fights World Hunger
Born in Maryville, Missouri to Irish parents, Northland resident Pat Tobin is celebrating his 50th year as a Catholic priest, and his story of fighting to reduce hunger in the world on a journey that has taken him to 31 countries, is featured in today’s Kansas City Star.
Tobin was pastor of an inner-city parish when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 death sparked rioting in Kansas City. That’s when he first wrote to Mother Teresa, who was known for her inspirational audio messages to youth.
She called, asking him to meet her in Chicago. They met for four hours and then parted ways.
On a Thursday, she called again. She wanted Tobin in Calcutta, India, that Monday to help her lead an eight-day retreat for her Missionaries of Charity.
His decades of work with Mother Teresa (including meeting Pope John Paul II), helping settle 120 Cuban families in Kansas City and St Joseph, and helping place 600 children in foster and adoptive homes, are all detailed in the article, among other work. And after fifty years Father Pat hasn’t finished with his mission yet:
Now, the associate pastor at St. Therese Parish in Parkville, is on to save the world, 2½ gallons of water at a time.
According to the World Health Organization, more than a billion people still need safe drinking water. Tobin sees a solution in PUR, a water purifier engineered by Procter & Gamble and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He wants schools and corporations to adopt regions and quench them with the PUR sachets, which cleanse about 2½ gallons for about 10 cents, Tobin said.
The potential for that is beyond belief, Tobin said
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