KENYA: Founder of the First Catholic Video Production Center in Kenya, Dies at Age 93
Fr. Richard J. Quinn
The founder of the first Catholic video production centre in Kenya and East Africa Fr. Richard J. Quinn, died on Monday, January 27, at the second floor Assisted Living Unit at the Maryknoll Center, New York, United States of America (USA) at the age of 93.
The missionary who served as the director of Ukweli Video Productions (UVP) for 26 years, had the aim to evangelize through the use of images and according to the people who are paying him tribute, he was an exceptional priest and inspirational to many.
“Fr. Quinn showed great interest in using images in evangelization,” Bishop Joseph Obanyi of Kenya’s Kakamega Diocese explained and added, “He inspired me to become a priest (and) he was a great Father and mentor throughout his priestly life. I learnt from him generosity, selflessness, faith, deep love for the Church, and above all the role of all Christian faithful in the mission of the Church.”
Explaining the late Fr. Quinn’s concern that lay people should be enlightened on Church matters, Bishop Obanyi said, “He believed in the empowerment of the laity in the mission of the Church at a time when many people did not think so.”
Due to this, “he started the first ever Pastoral Centre in Kenya and indeed in the whole of East and Central Africa, “Viongozi Centre” to train lay leaders for the work of evangelization in accordance with the (then) newly promulgated Vatican II document, Christifideles Laici,” said Bishop Obanyi who is also Chairman of the Commission for Social Communications at Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) explained.
According to the 53-year-old prelate, the late Maryknoll missionary also known to many as Fr. Dick, “promoted African art and drama in evangelization; in the book entitle Who Is Stealing Our Sheep he captured the challenges of faith among Catholics especially the attacks from mushrooming sects in Kenya; produced some of the best video documentaries ever in Kenya and Tanzania famously known as the Catholic Answers series; trained may young men and women in the field of film making and video production.”
He continued, “Fr. Quinn stands out as an outstanding priest who believed that the Church needed to go out and evangelize. In fact he believed that a time had come for the Church to move out of the pulpit and stand at the markets and proclaim Christ without fear. He believed if the Church did not go out to seek out the lost sheep, then she was losing them.”
“I can call him without fear of contradiction as the Father of modern media in Kenya,” Bishop Obanyi concluded.
“Fr. Quinn produced excellent videos where he linked Small Christian Communities and evangelization,” Fr. Joseph Healey a confrere to the late Maryknoll Missionary recalled and narrated further, “He produced hundreds of videos and 10 of these productions were on Small Christian Communities where he promoted evangelization in practical action, mission and service.”
“I stayed with the late Fr. Quinn for 10 years and I know some of his productions including The Bible Alive, The Church in the Neighborhood Small Christian Communities and The fish group among others,” Fr. Healey recalled.
“What Fr. Quinn left behind at Ukweli is really amazing – educational, spiritual, emotional, entertainment content and so on,” says Ms. Felista Vuyanzi a former employee at Ukweli Video Productions who did marketing and assisted in graphic designing.
From other sources who Fr. Quinn mentored they described him as a priest who was “… serious, comical and a cartoon.”
“When he was serious and required a certain Job to be delivered in a certain manner, rest assured it will have to be delivered that way. There was no room to compromise quality. He was a cartoon because, he had traveled the world even to the places you thought he doesn’t know and he would give you a very funny stories about them … for me he has been a true human being. He taught me that life has its serious side and also its fun side, “one of the mentees recounted.
He added, “In matters of faith, he was as serious as in matters of work. Faith had no short cut. The bar for faith was set according to what is in the Bible. We will miss you but your long lasting legacy of friendship and faith will not depart from your friends and the many souls you touched.”
“Father Quinn was a spiritual mentor and a charitable person who taught his congregation to assist the less fortunate in society,” another mentee expressed in her tribute and added, “In God’s hands may you rest, in our hearts you live forever.”
Fr. Quinn will be laid to rest in Maryknoll, New York, on Monday February 3 and a public memorial mass will be held at St Francis Xavier Church in Parklands, Nairobi- Kenya Saturday, February 22.
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
