Fr Michael McGrath died on 28 January 2026, peacefully at the SMA House, African Missions, Blackrock Road, Cork at the age of 85 years. He worked in Nigeria for more than fifty years. Below is a tribute written by the Bishop of Katsina, Most Rev Gerald Mamman Musa.
If holiness were measured by noise, Fr Michael McGRATH might have been overlooked. He did not arrive with thunder, slogans, or spiritual fireworks. He arrived instead with books under his arm, time in his pocket, a tennis racket in the boot of the car, and a Mass that was celebrated as though heaven itself had politely asked him not to rush.
As Director of the Catechetical Centre in Malumfashi, Fr Michael quietly performed a miracle that only patient people can pull off: he turned a local centre into a national one. Catechists came from different parts of Nigeria, not because of glossy brochures, but because word travelled the old-fashioned way: “If you want to understand the faith and remain human, go to Malumfashi.” There, catechists were trained not to sound clever, but to sound clear; not to impress, but to instruct; not to dominate, but to serve.
One of his major decisions was employing my father, Mr Emmanuel Musa, to work with him in training catechists and translating the many books written by Fr Michael himself and Sr. Nicole Grégoire. Translation, after all, is theology with dust on its feet. Through Hausa words and African images, the faith learned to breathe local air. If St Jerome translated Scripture, Fr Michael translated the Church’s confidence in lay people.
As a child, I learned some of my most enduring lessons from simply watching him. The way he celebrated Mass was catechesis without footnotes. After Holy Communion, there was always a deep, unhurried silence, so deep that even the angels seemed to sit down. It was there I learned that prayer is not something you squeeze between appointments; it is the appointment that gives meaning to everything else.
And yet, Fr Michael was no cloistered mystic who forgot the clock. Long before I entered the seminary, I learned from him what it meant to have time for everything. When he prayed, he prayed with mind, body, and spirit. When he taught, he taught with the same devotion. When he administered, he did so with clarity. When he played sports, especially tennis and golf, he played with joy and determination, proving that grace does not cancel balance, and holiness does not forbid a good backhand.
He travelled with my siblings and me, took pleasure in our company, and was connected to our family in a way that went beyond pastoral duty. He showed us that a missionary does not merely serve communities; he becomes part of families. If evangelisation is about incarnation, then Fr Michael incarnated himself very successfully, complete with Irish humour, African patience, and a suitcase that always seemed heavier on the way back because it was full of books.
He believed strongly that catechists and lay leaders are not assistants to evangelisation; they are its backbone. This conviction led him to the Gaba Pastoral Institute in Kenya in 1972, where he met Sr Nicole Grégoire. Providence has a quiet sense of humour—it often introduces collaborators before they know they are collaborators. Together, they produced the “Africa, Our Way” series, now over 20 books strong, available in English, Hausa, and Kiswahili, with translations into other African languages, and complemented by videos and posters. Forty years on, these materials are still shaping catechists, homilists, and pastoral workers across the continent. Many books age; good catechetical tools mature.
From 1974, Fr Michael spent 19 years directing the Malumfashi Catechetical Centre, training hundreds of catechists—full-time and part-time—who now serve in parishes across Nigeria. The Centre itself continues under Nigerian leadership, which is perhaps one of his quietest successes: he built something that did not need him to survive.
After returning to Kaduna in 1993, he devoted himself to reprinting, distributing, and explaining the “Africa, Our Way” series, running a bookshop, answering questions, advising priests on RCIA, conducting seminars, and helping wherever help was needed. “There is no such thing as a typical day in my life,” he once said—a statement that perfectly describes a man who allowed God to write his timetable.
Even the margins of society were not beyond his concern. For several years, he served as chaplain to the Borstal Training Institute in Kaduna, spending long Sundays with young men who had already learned too much about failure and too little about mercy. He handed this ministry on to a local priest, as he always did, because for him, mission was never about ownership, only about continuity.
If one were to sum up Fr Michael McGrath’s life with gentle humour, one might say this: he taught the faith with books, defended it with patience, celebrated it with reverence, played it out on tennis courts, and proved that the most effective missionaries are those who believe deeply in ordinary people. He showed us that catechetics is not about producing answers, but about forming witnesses.
And perhaps his greatest legacy is this simple lesson: when you take catechists seriously, Christ is taken seriously.
We send our sincere condolences to the entire family of the Society of African Missions and to all whose lives have been touched by Fr McGrath in Ireland, Nigeria and other places.
+Gerald Musa
Bishop of Katsina, Nigeria
30th January 2026