A MEMORIAL Mass will take place in Fermoy, Co Cork, next Saturday to pay tribute to human rights campaigner Pat Rice who died in Argentina last month.
Mr Rice (64) worked as a human rights advocate in Argentina for over 40 years, first as a priest and later as a lay activist after he married Fatima Cabrera.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said Mr Rice, who died from a heart attack last month, was “an extraordinary Irishman” who would be remembered for his impact on Ireland, Argentina and the international human rights arena. He was buried in Buenos Aires.
The Mass will take place in St Patrick’s Church in Fermoy on Saturday at 2.30pm. Mr Rice was baptised, confirmed and, as a priest, said his first Mass there.
Born in Fermoy in September 1945, he was educated at the local Christian Brothers’ school.
He joined the Divine Word Missionaries, studied at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and was ordained in 1970.
His order sent him to Argentina as a chaplain to the Catholic University of Santa Fe and an assistant professor in the philosophy department there.
He became a worker priest in Santa Fe province, serving in a programme to unionise forest workers and agricultural labourers. In 1974, he moved to Buenos Aires, got a job as a carpenter and lived with the Hermanitos in the shanty town of Villa Soldati. Following a coup in 1976, the military authorities viewed the Hermanitos with suspicion.
On October 11th, 1976, Mr Rice and 18-year-old catechist Fatima Cabrera left a prayer meeting in his parish in Villa Soldati to be abducted and tortured for days.
Prompt action by the staff of the Irish Embassy in Buenos Aires helped save them both. Mr Rice was reunited with Fatima in 1984.
A year later, he was laicised and they were married. He is survived by Fatima and the couple’s three children, Carlos, Amy and Blanca.