Principal's Message 

Reflections from the Kildare Ministries Conference 2026

Representatives from each school and organisation gathered at St Joseph’s College Echuca from August 26–28 for the Kildare Ministries Conference, centred around the theme Our Voice, Our Future: Listening, Responding, Transforming Together.

For twelve years, Kildare Ministries has carried forward the remarkable gift of a living charism, rooted in the historical foundations of St Brigid, Nano Nagle, and Bishop Daniel Delany. Now, Kildare Ministries schools and organisations are charged with ensuring that this charism continues to thrive.

We know that St Brigid met the needs of her time with courage, compassion, and radical hospitality, a spirit we saw lived out by the staff of St Joseph’s College throughout the conference. Nano Nagle walked the streets of Cork by lantern light, ensuring poverty did not determine access to education or human dignity. Today, KEM schools, Wellsprings, BASP, and Saltbush lead with this same mission, continuing to embed the transformative power of faith, community, and education to build the better future Bishop Daniel Delany envisioned.

None of the current founders of Kildare Ministries had a complete map for the road ahead. Instead, they listened deeply to the needs of their time and discerned how they were called to respond. At the final liturgy, each community leader was given a compass – a symbol reminding us that although the way ahead may be unknown, we must not lose sight of who we are and who came before us.

At the heart of the conference was a focus on genuine listening: to one another, to the voices within our ministries, and to remaining faithful to our mission in a rapidly changing world. Genuine listening changes us, inviting us to look beyond what we have heard and shape how we live moving forward.

As a Killester College community, we are called not simply to preserve or honour this legacy, but to actively live it out and make it fruitful in our time by building a community defined by hope, dignity, belonging, strength, and kindliness.

Antonella Rosati

Principal