T HE PLANS FOR CHRISTOPHER INN INTERNATIONAL were first and foremost born of prayer and a sense of God’s call to provide a place of refreshment for His shepherds.
The beginnings of the call came in 1997, with the idea of serving the priests locally in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Christopher Inn, Inc. (CI) was established as a non-profit organization on February 22, 2000. As the vision for the project was shared with priests—locally, nationally, and internationally—clergy expressed universal enthusiasm for the project. By the end of 2003, the idea of making the Christopher Inn an international place for bishops and priests, located in Ireland, expanded the scope of the vision. Several years of prayer and discernment followed. In 2008, a core team developed to meet weekly for prayer and to discuss the business development of CI. In 2009, the vision for the project was presented to the Congregation for the Clergy at the Vatican, and supporting materials were delivered to the Congregation on June 19, 2009, as the Year for Priests began.
In June of 2011, The Christopher Inn International was established as a corporation in Ireland, and in the spring of 2012, the first two Programs for Priestly Renewal for Irish priests were hosted in western Ireland.
With the grace of God and the generosity of donors, we hope to be able to acquire property in the near future and open the doors of The Christopher Inn International, as a gift at the service of the Church’s priests.
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