Sir, - There are several facts which should be put on the public record in response to the letter from Fr Pat Buckley (April 29th).
1. On June 5th, 1998, the Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Patrick Walsh, suspended Fr Pat Buckley from the exercise of his priestly functions after he had failed to give an assurance that he would accept the authority of the Church and wholly desist from his malpractice in respect of the Sacrament of Marriage. This assurance had been formally requested by Bishop Walsh in a letter to Fr Buckley on May 7th, 1998.
2. On June 14th, 1998, Fr Buckley announced in the News of the World, that he had been "ordained" a bishop a month earlier by Michael Cox. On behalf of the Irish Bishops' Conference, I have to state that there is no justification for considering as valid the "Episcopal ordination" received by Fr Buckley. The Holy See has confirmed this judgement.
3. The same judgement has been confirmed by the Holy See in relation to the supposed Episcopal ordination of Michael Cox by a person who had himself been "ordained" by Clemente Gomez, leader of a breakaway sect of apocalyptic pseudo-visionaries based at Palmar de Troya, Spain. On the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, Gomez declared himself to be his successor, styling himself Pope Gregory XVII.
4. With regard to the "ordinations" associated directly or indirectly with the Palmar de Troya cult, from which Michael Cox derives his claim to legitimacy of orders, the Holy See formally declared in 1976, and again in 1983, that "the Church does not nor shall it recognise" them. - Yours, etc., Rev Martin Clarke,
Communications Officer, Irish Bishops' Conference, Booterstown Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.