A quiet revolution has been taking place in the leadership of the Catholic Church in Ireland since Archbishop Charles Brown became papal nuncio three years ago. He has overseen the appointment of 10 new bishops to Ireland’s 26 dioceses, with potentially five more to come this year.
Included in the appointments made are two of the church’s four archbishops, one of them the new Catholic primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, who at 53 is also one the youngest bishops on the island. The youngest is the new Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin Denis Nulty (51).
No papal nuncio before has overseen the appointment of so many bishops in such a short time. This has been down to retirements, resignations, and ill-health. But it is likely to have a major influence on the Irish church in the years to come.
February has seen the appointment of a new bishop and the installation of another one. Fr Alphonsus Cullinan (55), a priest of Limerick diocese, was appointed to succeed Bishop Emeritus of Waterford & Lismore William Lee, who retired on grounds of ill-health.
The new Archbishop of Cashel & Emly, Kieran O’Reilly(62), was installed in the post after moving from Killaloe diocese where he was bishop since August 2010.
Candidates
Neither was a priest of the diocese to which he has been appointed, representing a departure from the practice where a bishop generally came from among priests in the diocese.
There appears to be less emphasis nowadays on academic qualifications, as opposed to pastoral experience, in the selection of candidates.
Within two years of his arrival in January 2012, Archbishop Brown had appointed six new bishops, some to particularly sensitive postings following publication of the Murphy report in 2009 into sexual abuse in the Dublin archdiocese and the Cloyne report in 2011 into sexual abuse in that diocese.
In January 2013 he ordained Fr William Crean (63), parish priest of Cahirciveen, Co Kerry, as Bishop of Cloyne, succeeding Bishop John Magee, who resigned followed publication of the Cloyne report.
Msgr Brendan Leahy (54), a priest of the Dublin archdiocese, was ordained Bishop of Limerick in April 2013, succeeding Bishop Donal Murray, who resigned following the Murphy report.
In April 2013 Msgr Eamon Martin was ordained Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh. He succeeded Cardinal Sean Brady, who retired on age grounds, as Primate of All Ireland in September 2014.
In July 2013 Fr Raymond Browne (57), a priest of Elphin diocese, was ordained Bishop of Kerry, succeeding Bishop William Murphy, who retired on age grounds.
In August 2013 Bishop Denis Nulty, a parish priest in Dundalk, was ordained Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin, succeeding Bishop Jim Moriarty, who resigned following the Murphy report.
In October 2013 a priest of Kilmore diocese, Fr Francis Duffy (56), was ordained Bishop of Ardagh & Clonmacnois, succeeding Bishop Colm O’Reilly, who retired on age grounds.
Since 2013 four more episcopal appointments included Down & Connor Auxiliary Bishop Donal McKeown (65) as Bishop of Derry in April 2014; Dublin parish priest Fr Kevin Doran (61) as Bishop of Elphin in July 2014; Bishop O’Reilly as Archbishop of Cashel & Emly; and Fr Cullinan as Bishop of Waterford & Lismore.
Five other appointments may potentially take place in 2015 in Killaloe, Clonfert, Raphoe, Meath, and Cork & Ross dioceses.The appointment to Killaloe will fill the vacancy created by the “translation” of Bishop O’Reilly to Cashel & Emly.
Before the end of June four bishops will have reached the age of 75 when every bishop must offer a letter of resignation to Rome. It is at the pope’s discretion when it is accepted.
The Bishop of Clonfert, John Kirby, was 75 in October 2013. Bishop of Cork & Ross John Buckley was 75 in November 2014, while the Bishop of Raphoe, Philip Boyce, was 75 on January 25th, 2015. Ireland’s longest serving bishop, Bishop of Meath Michael Smith, was ordained Coadjutor bishop of the diocese in 1988 and is 75 in June 2015.
Auxiliary bishops
One of the three remaining auxiliary bishops in Ireland, Bishop Anthony Farguhar of Down & Connor diocese, is 75 in September 2015. Should his resignation be accepted it will mean there will be just two auxiliary bishops remaining in Ireland.
Bishop Ray Field was 70 last May, and Bishop Eamonn Walsh was 70 last September.
No new auxiliary bishop has been appointed in Ireland since April 2001, when Bishop Donal McKeown became auxiliary bishop in Down & Connor.
Assuming all potential vacancies arising this year are filled, it is the first time in Ireland for 15 bishops to be appointed so quickly after a papal nuncio’s arrival.
The influence of Archbishop Brown on these appointments has been central. Considering his background at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, where he worked for 17 years before coming to Ireland, and that some new bishops are of a traditional hue, the emphasis on pastoral experience in selecting bishops has come as something of a welcome surprise. Clearly valuable lessons have been learned.
Archbishop Charles Brown: profile of a New Yorker who became papal nuncio to Ireland
Archbishop Charles Brown (55) is a native New Yorker, born in Manhattan’s predominantly Jewish East Village area. The family moved upstate when he was five. He is the eldest of six, born to a lawyer father with German lineage and an Irish American mother Patricia Murphy.
He has said: “Of my eight great-grandparents, five were Irish and the others were German... My Irish ancestors came to America during and after the Famine. They left because they were poor.”
Ordained for New York in 1989, he served in a Bronx parish for two years before going to Rome for studies. In 1994 he joined the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome which needed an English speaker.
Working alongside the future Pope Benedict XVI there for 10 years, he remained at the CDF until November 2011, when it was announced he had been appointed papal nuncio to Ireland. This was at the direct request of Pope Benedict and a surprise as Archbishop Brown had not been a member of the Vatican’s diplomatic corps.
Since his arrival in Ireland he has not been without critics. At the World Day of Peace Mass on New Year’s Day 2013 in the Church of St Thérèse in Dublin, he spoke forcefully on the “need to work vigorously and courageously to protect and nurture human life from conception to natural death”.
This was in advance of the debate on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill and a week before the Oireachtas health committee began its hearings on the Bill. His congregation included President Michael D Higgins, the Taoiseach’s aide-de-camp Cmmdt Michael Treacy, representatives of the political parties and members of the judiciary and the diplomatic corps. While no one was surprised to hear a Catholic bishop speak in such terms on the issue, it was felt by many present that the occasion was inappropriate.
In September 2013, co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests Fr Brendan Hoban queried whether the new nuncio was “the right man to appoint, effectively on his own, a whole phalanx of new bishops”.
Archbishop Brown, he said, had “spent very little time in parish work and he has no formal training as a papal nuncio, in that he was catapulted out of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith into the diplomatic service by Pope Benedict as Rome’s answer to the dysfunctional Irish Catholic Church”.
Archbishop Brown has been very active meeting and greeting. He has made a positive impression overall which, it is believed, helped towards Ireland’s Embassy to the Holy See being reopened last year.
