Downey’s tenure sees the construction and dedication of the crypt of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, built to a design by Sir Edwin Lutyens, although the Cathedral itself is never completed as he had envisaged. A picture of Lutyens proposed cathedral is printed on postcards sold to raise funds.
In 1929, before the actual construction begins, Downey states, “Hitherto all cathedrals have been dedicated to saints. I hope this one will be dedicated to Christ himself with a great figure surmounted on the cathedral, visible for many a mile out at sea.” He also declares that while the Cathedral will not be medieval and Gothic, neither will it be as modern as the works of Jacob Epstein, a statement somewhat at odds with the design that is finally realised after his death.
Downey dies in Liverpool at the age of 72 on June 16, 1953, having served as Liverpool’s archbishop for twenty-four years. His remains are interred in a crypt at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool.
Eames spends his early years in Larne, with the family later moving to Belfast. He is educated at the city’s Belfast Royal Academy and Methodist College Belfast before going on to study at Queen’s University Belfast, graduating LL.B. (Upper Second Class Honours) in 1960 and earning a Ph.D. degree in canon law and history in 1963. During his undergraduate course at Queen’s, one of his philosophy lecturers is his future Roman Catholic counterpart, Cahal Daly.
Turning his back on legal studies for ordination in the Church of Ireland, Eames embarks on a three-year course at the divinity school of Trinity College, Dublin in 1960, but finds the course “intellectually unsatisfying.” In 1963 he is appointed curate assistant at Bangor Parish Church, becoming rector of St. Dorothea’s in Belfast in 1966, the same year he marries Christine Daly.
During his time at St. Dorothea’s, in the Braniel and Tullycarnet area of east Belfast, Eames develops a “coffee bar ministry” among young people but is interrupted by the Troubles. He turns down the opportunity to become dean of Cork and in 1974 is appointed rector of St. Mark’s in Dundela in east Belfast, a church with strong family links to C. S. Lewis.
On May 9, 1975, at the age of 38, Eames is elected bishop of the cross-border Diocese of Derry and Raphoe. Five years later, on May 30, 1980, he is translated to the Diocese of Down and Dromore. He is elected to Down and Dromore on April 23 and that election is confirmed on May 20, 1980. In 1986, he becomes the 14th Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland since the Church of Ireland’s break with Rome. It is an appointment that causes some level of astonishment among other church leaders.
Drumcree Church, a rural parish near Portadown, becomes the site of a major political incident in 1996, when the annual Orangemen‘s march is banned by the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary from returning to the centre of Portadown via the nationalist Garvaghy Road after attending worship at Drumcree Church. Public unrest and violence escalate over the next three summers as other parades come under first police and later commission sanction.
Eames, as diocesan bishop and civil leader finds himself immersed in the search for a resolution to the issue. Within the wider Church of Ireland there is unease as it is a broad church in theology and politics including within its congregations nationalists in the south and unionists in the north. Eames, along with the rector of Drumcree, has to navigate this political and social controversy and seeks political assistance to diffuse tension. Some bishops in the Republic of Ireland call for Eames to close the parish church, including Bishop John Neill who later becomes Archbishop of Dublin. He refuses to do so, believing this action could precipitate greater unrest and possible bloodshed.
Eames is, for many years, a significant figure within the general Anglican Communion. In 2003, the self-styled ‘divine optimist’ is appointed Chairman of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, which examines significant challenges to unity in the Anglican Communion. The Commission publishes its report, the Windsor Report, on October 18, 2004.
At the Church of Ireland General Synod in 2006 Eames announces his intention to retire on December 31, 2006. Church law permits him to continue as primate until the age of 75 but he resigns, in good health, at the age of 69. On January 10, 2007, the eleven serving bishops of the Church of Ireland meet at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and elect Alan Harper, Bishop of Connor, as Eames’s successor.
Ryan is born Matthew Abraham Ryan in Hagerstown, Maryland on February 5, 1838, the fourth child of Irish immigrants Matthew Ryan and his wife, Mary Coughlin, both of Clogheen, County Tipperary, and their first to be born in the United States.
In 1840 the family relocates to Ralls County, Missouri, and then, in 1846, to St. Louis, where the father opens a general store. Ryan is educated at St. Joseph’s Academy, run by the De La Salle Brothers. Showing a strong inclination to piety, he is encouraged by his mother and teachers to consider becoming a priest. He decides to test a calling to the priesthood and on September 16, 1851, at the age of 13, enters the College of St. Mary’s of the Barrens, near Perryville, Missouri, a minor seminary for young candidates for the priesthood. By the time of his graduation in 1855, he has decided to pursue Holy Orders.
Ryan then enters the Vincentians, taking the oath of obedience to the Congregation. He does three more years of study at the college during the course of which, on June 19, 1857, he receives minor orders. In 1858, shortly after the death of his father, he is sent to the Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels near Niagara Falls, New York.
As a Southerner, Ryan feels out of place at the seminary, and soon begins to express his opposition to the abolitionist movement then gaining popularity in the Northeastern United States. He then joins in the sentiment expressed by the Catholic bishops and editors of the nation in that period, who feel threatened by the anti-Catholic opinions expressed by the leadership of the Abolitionists. His writings in that period begin to express suspicion of Northern goals. Possibly for that reason, he is sent back to St. Mary of the Barrens.
During the winter of 1860, Ryan gives a lecture series through which he starts to gain notice as a speaker. His abilities as a preacher gain wide approval, and his superiors decide to have him ordained a priest earlier than is the normal age under church law. On September 12, 1860, he is ordained a priest at his home parish in St. Louis, with the ordination being performed by the Bishop of St. Louis, Peter Richard Kenrick.
In the Fall of 1861, soon after the start of the American Civil War, Ryan is transferred back to the Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels in New York. After a couple of bouts of illness, he declares himself fit to teach again in April 1862, but his superiors instead transfer him to parish duties in LaSalle, Illinois. After arriving there, he realizes that he will not be able to express his strong views in support of the Confederacy. Frustrated, and feeling ignored by his immediate superior, he requests his release from his oath of obedience. Upon his release he returns home, where he and his brother David intend to enlist in the Confederate States Army.
Ryan makes sporadic early appearances as a freelance chaplain among Confederate troops from Louisiana and begins making appearances in Tennessee in 1862. He begins full-time pastoral duties in Tennessee in late 1863 or early 1864. Though he never formally joins the Confederate Army, he clearly is serving as a freelance chaplain by the last two years of the conflict, with possible appearances at the Battle of Lookout Mountain and the Battle of Missionary Ridge near Chattanooga, and well-authenticated service at the Battle of Franklin and the subsequent Battle of Nashville. Some of his most moving poems —”In Memoriam” and “In Memory of My Brother”— come in response to his brother’s death, who died while serving in uniform for the Confederacy in April 1863, likely from injuries suffered during fighting near Mount Sterling, Kentucky.
On June 24, 1865, Ryan’s most famous poem, “The Conquered Banner,” appears in the pages of the New York Freeman’s Journal over his early penname “Moina.” Starting in 1865, he moves from parish to parish throughout the South. Beginning in November 1881 he spends a year in semi-retirement at Biloxi, Mississippi while completing his second book, A Crown for Our Queen. In Augusta, Georgia, he founds The Banner of the South, a religious and political weekly in which he republishes much of his early poetry, along with poetry by fellow-southerners James Ryder Randall, Paul Hamilton Hayne, and Sidney Lanier, as well as an early story by Mark Twain.
In 1879, Ryan’s work is gathered into a collected volume of verse, first titled Father Ryan’s Poems and subsequently republished in 1880 as Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous. His collection sells remarkably well for the next half-century. His work also finds a popular following in his family’s ancestral home of Ireland. An article about his work appears in Irish Monthly during his life, and a decade after his death, yet another collection of his poetry is published in Dublin by The Talbot Press under the title Selected Poems of Father Abram Ryan.
In 1880 Ryan’s old restlessness returns, and he heads north for the twofold object of publishing his poems and lecturing. He dies April 22, 1886, at a Franciscanfriary in Louisville, Kentucky, but his body is returned to St. Mary’s in Mobile, Alabama for burial. He is interred in Mobile’s Catholic Cemetery. In recognition of his loyal service to the Confederacy, a stained-glass window is placed in the Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans in his memory. In 1912 a local newspaper launches a drive to erect a statue to him. Dedicated in July 1913, it includes a stanza from “The Conquered Banner” below an inscription that reads: “Poet, Patriot, and Priest.”
Leslie is born on July 27, 1650, in Dublin, the sixth son and one of eight surviving children of John Leslie (1571-1671) and Katherine Conyngham (or Cunningham), daughter of Dr. Alexander Cunningham, Dean of Raphoe. He is allegedly named after the executed Charles I and educated at Enniskillen school and Trinity College, Dublin. After his father dies in 1671, he studies law in London before changing career and being ordained as an Anglican priest in 1681. Shortly afterwards, he returns to the family estate at Glaslough in County Monaghan and marries Jane Griffith. They have a daughter, Vinigar Jane, who appears to have died young and two sons, Robert (1683-1744) and Henry who are also Jacobites and spend time in exile.
Leslie is appointed assistant curate for the Church of Ireland parish of Donagh but as most of his parish is Roman Catholic or Presbyterian, he has few duties. His father had been chaplain to Charles I and a key supporter of Caroline religious reforms, first in Scotland, then in Ireland as Bishop of Raphoe in 1633, while the estate at Glaslough was granted by Charles II in 1660 as a reward for his service. With this background, Leslie is a firm supporter of the Stuart dynasty, although deeply hostile to Catholicism and soon becomes involved in political and theological disputes.
Shortly afterwards, Leslie becomes Clarendon’s personal chaplain and like his patron refuses to take the oath of allegiance to William III and Mary II. Like other non-jurors, he is deprived of his Church offices and becomes instead one of the most prominent Jacobite and Tory propagandists. This includes a long dispute with his Trinity College contemporary William King, who supports the Revolution. Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, later names him ‘the violentest Jacobite’ active in England during these years.
Much of Leslie’s early writing focuses on Scotland, where the 1690 Settlement ends Episcopacy and restores a Presbyterian kirk. He uses this to inspire concern about William’s intentions towards the Church of England. Ironically, his modern fame now rests primarily on a pamphlet written in 1695, called Gallienus Redivivus, or Murther will out, &c. Being a true Account of the De Witting of Glencoe, Gaffney. The focus of this is William’s alleged complicity in the 1672 death of Dutch Republican leader Johan de Witt, with other crimes including Glencoe included as secondary charges. During the Jacobite rising of 1745, Charles Stuart orders Leslie’s pamphlet and the 1695 Parliamentary minutes of the investigation to be reprinted in the EdinburghCaledonian Mercury.
During the 1690s, Leslie serves as a messenger between James’ court in exile at Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Non-Juror community in England, including the non-juror bishops Jeremy Collier, Thomas Ken and George Hickes. He defends Collier and two other non-juror priests when they become involved in a furor over the execution of Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkyns for their role in the 1696 Jacobite plot to assassinate William. Immediately prior to the execution, the clergymen declare the two absolved of their sins, effectively declaring the correctness of their actions, while also performing a rite not recognised by the Church of England.
In 1702, the accession of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, causes a resurgence in Jacobite activity and in 1704, Leslie begins a weekly periodical initially called The Observator, later The Rehearsal of Observator and finally The Rehearsal. Although his Tory readership shares his High Church principles, he is primarily a Jacobite and violently opposes the common practice of ‘occasional conformity.’ The Rehearsal is forced to close in 1709 and he falls out with his former allies, including Henry Sacheverell whose trial helped the Tories win a landslide victory in the 1710 British general election.
Despite his Tory allies now being in government, a warrant is issued for Leslie’s arrest for his tract The Good Old Cause, or, Lying in Truth. In 1711 he escapes to Paris, where James Francis Edward Stuart has succeeded his father as the Stuart heir in 1701. He continues to write polemics and act as a Jacobite agent. However, after the failed Jacobite rising of 1715, France withdraws support for the Stuarts who are forced to leave France, eventually being invited to settle in Rome by Pope Benedict XIV. The Spanish-sponsored 1719 Rising in Scotland is judged to have done more damage to the Jacobite cause than otherwise, one of its leaders concluding “it bid fair to ruin the King’s Interest and faithful subjects in these parts.”
Despite these failures, Leslie remains a dedicated Jacobite but his lifelong antipathy towards Catholicism makes living in Rome as a Papal pensionary difficult, while hopes of converting James to Anglicanism fades due to his devout personal Catholicism. He returns to Paris in 1717 and in 1719 publishes a two folio-volume edition of his Theological Works. It is later claimed these placed him ‘very high in the list of controversial authors, the ingenuity of the arguments being equalled only by the keenest and pertinacity with which they are pursued.’ He invites friends and supporters to subscribe to these and by 1721, over 500 members of the House of Lords and House of Commons have pledged a total of £750. Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland finally allows him to return home, with the stipulation he cease his political activities.
Walsh is born at 11 Essex Quay in Dublin, the only child of Ralph and Mary Perce Walsh. His father is a watchmaker and jeweler. He inherits his sympathy for Irish nationalism and independence from his father, who has the boy enrolled in the Repeal Association before he is two years old. He is educated locally at Mr. Fitzpatrick’s School on Peter St. and at St. Laurence O’Toole Seminary School, Harcourt Street, Dublin. In 1856, he goes to the Catholic University of Ireland and three years later to St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth where he becomes Professor of Theology in 1867. He is appointed vice-president of Maynooth in 1878 and president in 1880. A poor preacher, he makes the press his pulpit, making a name for himself in the areas of land law and education.
Walsh is ordained into the priesthood on May 22, 1866. He is appointed Archbishop of Dublin on July 3, 1885, followed by his consecration on August 2, 1885. He serves in this position until his death in 1921 and is succeeded by Edward Joseph Byrne.
The Land issue divides the Irish hierarchy. Walsh supports agrarian reform on behalf of the rural population. He is openly sympathetic to Irish nationalism, and an advocate of both Home Rule and agrarian land reform. It is his support for this movement, led by Michael Davitt, which leads the Vatican to honour Michael Logue in Armagh with the dignity of Cardinal in 1893 rather than Walsh in Dublin.
Walsh serves on the Senate of the Royal University of Ireland (1883–84) and as part of the Commission of National Education (1885–1901). He is appointed Chancellor of the newly founded National University of Ireland in 1908, a position he holds until his death, after which he is succeeded by Éamon de Valera.
Walsh has been described as “the greatest archbishop of Dublin since Laurence O’Toole (Lorcán Ua Tuathail). Walsh Road in Drumcondra, Dublin is named after him.
Saint Gelasius of Armagh B (AC), also known as Giolla Iosa and Gioua-Mac-Liag, dies on March 27, 1174. The son of the Irish poet Diarmaid, Saint Gelasius (meaning `servant of Jesus’) is the learned abbot of Derry for sixteen years. He is consecrated Archbishop of Armagh c. 1137, when Saint Malachy resigns and serves as Primate of Ireland until 1174.
During his long episcopacy, Gelasius has to deal with the events before and after the Norman invasion, including the alleged Donation of Ireland by Pope Adrian IV to Henry II of England, Henry’s arrival in Ireland in 1171, and Pope Alexander III’s confirmation of everything granted by Adrian IV.
Gelasius reconstructs the Cathedral of Armagh and, in 1162, consecrates Saint Laurence O’Toole as Archbishop of Dublin, although the invasion and settlement of Dublin by Norsemen means that the Christians of that see are looking more to Canterbury than Armagh. That same year, during the Synod of Clane in County Kildare, a uniform liturgy is ensured throughout Ireland by requiring that only Armagh-trained or Armagh-accredited teachers of divinity may teach in any school attached to the Irish Church.
Gelasius is an indefatigable prelate. He makes constant visitations throughout Ireland, reorganizes old monasteries, and convenes synods. He is said to be the first Irish bishop to whom the pallium is sent. Pope Eugene III’s papal legate, Cardinal Giovanni Paparoni, brings four pallia with him to the Synod of Kells in 1152 for the archbishops of Armagh, Cashel, Dublin, and Tuam. The records of this synod include the first mention of tithes in Irish annals, which Cardinal Paparoni proposes but none of the participants support. The matter of tithes and the Peter’s Pence is an important consideration in subsequent negotiations between Pope Adrian IV and Henry II of England.
Gelasius convenes another synod at Armagh in 1170 in the hope of finding some means to expel the Anglo-Normans, who had invaded the country the previous year, before they become too entrenched. In 1171, Henry II of England arrives, lavishly entertains the civic and ecclesiastic Irish leaders, and requests the convening of the Synod of Cashel, during which he presents a plan for improving the Church of Ireland. At this time there is no mention of any claim of Canterbury or the Donation. However, the eighth canon of the synod decrees that the Irish Church will celebrate the Divine Office according to the usage of the Church of England, which is still Catholic at the time.
The bishop of Armagh does not attend the Synod of Cashel. At the time he is occupied in a visitation of Connacht and Ulster in an attempt (in concert with the high king) to organize a defense of Ireland. He realizes that Henry II has duped many Irish princes by masking his true intentions.
The following year Henry II falls under interdict for his murder of Saint Thomas Becket. When news of HenryII’s penitential, bare-foot walk to the shrine of Saint Thomas and his plans for the `uplift’ of the Irish Church reaches Rome, Pope Alexander III confirms the Donation of Ireland made by Pope Adrian IV. Shortly thereafter the Church of Ireland became English, the School of Armagh is closed (c. 1188) and the last native bishop of Armagh until the Reformation dies in 1313.
(From: “Saints of the Day – Gelasius of Armagh” by Katherine I Rabenstein, CatholicSaints.Info (www.catholicsaints.info) | Pictured: Arms of the Archbishop of Armagh, in the Church of Ireland)
Glennon is named Coadjutor Archbishop of St. Louis on April 27, 1903. He succeeds Archbishop Kain as the fourth Archbishop of St. Louis upon the latter’s death on October 13 of that year. Realizing the Cathedral of St. Louis can no longer accommodate its growing congregation, he quickly begins raising funds for a new cathedral, the cornerstone of which is later laid on October 18, 1908.
Glennon opens the new Kenrick Seminary in 1915, followed by the minor seminary in Shrewsbury. He delivers the eulogy at the funeral of Cardinal James Gibbons and is appointed an Assistant at the Pontifical Throne on June 28, 1921. He opposes British rule in Ireland and supports the leaders of the Easter Rising. He is an outspoken opponent of divorce, condemns gambling games, and prohibits dancing and drinking at church-sponsored events. He sometimes throws the opening ball for the St. Louis Cardinals, but does not play any sports himself, once saying, “I once tried golf, but I so disfigured the scenery that I never played again, in fear of public indignation and reprisal.”[2]
Despite a rather popular tenure, as Archbishop of St. Louis Glennon opposes racial integration in the city’s Catholic schools, colleges, and universities. During the early 1940s, many local priests, especially Jesuits, challenge the segregationist policies at the city’s Catholic schools. The St. Louis chapter of the Midwest Clergy Conference on Negro Welfare, formed locally in 1938, pushes the all-female Webster College to integrate first. However, in 1943, Glennon blocks the enrollment of a young black woman at the college by speaking privately with the Kentucky-based superior of the Sisters of Loretto, which staffs the college. When approached directly by pro-integration priests, he calls the integration plan a “Jesuit ploy,” and quickly transfers one of the complaining priests away from his mission at an African American parish.
The Pittsburgh Courier, an African American newspaper with national circulation, discovers Glennon’s intervention and runs a front-page feature on the Webster incident. In response, Father Claude Heithaus, professor of Classical Archaeology at the Catholic Saint Louis University, delivers an angry sermon accusing his own institution of immoral behavior in its segregation policies. Saint Louis University begins admitting African American students that summer when its president, Father Patrick Holloran, manages to secure approval from the reluctant Archbishop Glennon. Nevertheless, St. Louis maintains one of the largest numbers of African American parishes and schools in the country.
During the return trip to the United States, Glennon stops in his native Ireland, where he is received by PresidentSeán T. O’Kelly and TaoiseachÉamon de Valera. While in Dublin, he is diagnosed with uremic poisoning and dies on March 9, 1946, ending a 42-year tenure as Archbishop. The Cardinal’s body is returned to St. Louis and then buried at the Cathedral.
MacHale’s parents are Patrick and Mary Mulkieran MacHale. He is so feeble at birth that he is baptised at home by Father Andrew Conroy. By the time he is five years of age, he begins attending a hedge school. Three important events happen during his childhood: the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the landing at Killala of French troops, whom the boy, hidden in a stacked sheaf of flax, watches marching through a mountain pass to Castlebar, and a few months later the brutal hanging of Father Conroy on a false charge of high treason.
With his friend and ally, Daniel O’Connell, MacHale takes a prominent part in the important question of Catholic emancipation, impeaching in unmeasured terms the severities of the former penal code, which had branded Catholics with the stamp of inferiority. During 1826 his zeal is omnipresent. He calls on the Government to remember how the Act of Union in 1800 was carried by William Pitt the Younger on the distinct assurance and implied promise that Catholic emancipation, which had been denied by the Irish Parliament, should be granted by the Parliament of the Empire.
Oliver Kelly, Archbishop of Tuam, dies in 1834, and the clergy selects MacHale as one of three candidates, to the annoyance of the Government who despatches agents to induce Pope Gregory XVI not to nominate him to the vacant see. Disregarding their request, the pope appoints MacHale Archbishop of Tuam. He is the first prelate since the Reformation who has received his entire education in Ireland. The corrupt practices of general parliamentary elections and the Tithe War cause frequent rioting and bloodshed and are the subjects of denunciation by the new archbishop, until the passing of a Tithes bill in 1838. He also leads the opposition to the ProtestantSecond Reformation, which is being pursued by evangelical clergy in the Church of Ireland, including the Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, Thomas Plunket.
The repeal of the Acts of Union 1800, advocated by O’Connell, enlists MacHale’s ardent sympathy and he assists the Liberator in many ways, and remits subscriptions from his priests for this purpose. In his zeal for the cause of the Catholic religion and of Ireland, so long downtrodden, but not in the 1830s, he frequently incurs from his opponents the charge of intemperate language, something not altogether undeserved. In his anxiety to reform abuses and to secure the welfare of Ireland, by an uncompromising and impetuous zeal, he makes many bitter and unrelenting enemies, particularly British ministers and their supporters.
The Great Famine of 1846–47 affects his diocese more than any. In the first year he announces in a sermon that the famine is a divine punishment on his flock for their sins. Then by 1846 he warns the Government as to the state of Ireland, reproaches them for their dilatoriness, and holds up the uselessness of relief works. From England as well as other parts of the world, cargoes of food are sent to the starving Irish. Bread and soup are distributed from the archbishop’s kitchen. Donations sent to him are acknowledged, accounted for, and disbursed by his clergy among the victims.
The death of O’Connell in 1847 is a setback to MacHale as are the subsequent disagreements within the Repeal Association. He strongly advises against the violence of Young Ireland. Over the next 30 years he becomes involved in political matters, particularly those involving the church. Toward the end of his life he becomes less active in politics.
MacHale attends the First Vatican Council in 1869. He believes that the favourable moment has not arrived for an immediate definition of the dogma of papal infallibility. Better to leave it a matter of faith, not written down, and consequently he speaks and votes in the council against its promulgation. Once the dogma had been defined, he declares the dogma of infallibility “to be true Catholic doctrine, which he believed as he believed the Apostles’ Creed“. In 1877, to the disappointment of the archbishop who desires that his nephew should be his co-adjutor, Dr. John McEvilly, Bishop of Galway, is elected by the clergy of the archdiocese, and is commanded by Pope Leo XIII after some delay, to assume his post. He had opposed this election as far as possible but submits to the papal order.
Every Sunday MacHale preaches a sermon in Irish at the cathedral, and during his diocesan visitations he always addresses the people in their native tongue, which is still largely used in his diocese. On journeys he usually converses in Irish with his attendant chaplain and has to use it to address people of Tuam or the beggars who greet him whenever he goes out. He preaches his last Irish sermon after his Sunday Mass, April 1881. He dies in Tuam seven months later, on November 7, 1881.
Connell is ordained priest by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid on May 19, 1951. He takes up a teaching post at the Department of Metaphysics at the University College Dublin. He is appointed Professor of General Metaphysics in 1972 and in 1983 becomes the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology. The College’s Department of Metaphysics is abolished after his departure.
Connell is appointed Archbishop of Dublin by the Holy See in early 1988. He is consecrated at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin on March 6, 1988. He is created Cardinal-Priest by Pope John Paul II at the Consistory in Rome on February 21, 2001, with the TitulusS. Silvestri in Capite. Archbishops of Armagh, who hold the higher title of Primate of All Ireland, are more frequently appointed Cardinal than Archbishops of Dublin. The last Archbishop of Dublin to have been a cardinal is Cardinal Edward MacCabe, who was appointed in 1882. A large Irish contingent from Church and State, along with family and friends of the Cardinal, attend the installation which for the first time takes place at the front of the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica.
On April 26, 2004, Connell retires as archbishop, handing the diocese to the coadjutor bishop, Diarmuid Martin. All bishops submit their resignation to the Pope on their 75th birthday. Connell’s is accepted shortly after his 78th birthday.
It is Connell’s failure, when Archbishop of Dublin in 1988–2004, to address adequately the abuse scandals in Dublin that lead the Vatican to assign Archbishop Martin as his replacement in the country’s largest diocese. The Murphy Report finds that Connell had handled the affair “badly” as he was “slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation.” It does praise him for making the archdiocesan records available to the authorities in 2002 and for his 1995 actions in giving the authorities the names of 17 priests who had been accused of abuse, although it says the list is incomplete as complaints were made against at least 28 priests in the archdiocese.
From 1988 Connell also continues to insure his archdiocese against liability from complainants, while claiming to the Murphy Commission that the archdiocese is “on a learning curve” in regard to child abuse. He arranges for compensation payments to be made from a “Stewardship Trust” that is kept secret from the archdiocese’s parishioners until 2003. In 1996 he refuses to help a victim of Paul McGennis and does not pass on what he knows about McGennis to her, or to the police. He apologises for this in 2002.
Desmond Connell dies in Dublin at the age of 90 on February 21, 2017, exactly sixteen years after his creation as Cardinal.
In 2013 Colton completes, and is conferred with, a PhD in Law also at Cardiff University. His academic areas of interest are church law, the law of the Church of Ireland, law within Anglicanism, the interface between the laws of religious communities and the laws of States (particularly in Ireland and Europe), human rights, education law, and charity law. In 2014 he is appointed as an honorary research fellow at the Cardiff School of Law and Politics of Cardiff University, and its Centre for Law and Religion.
Colton is married to Susan Colton, who is deputy principal of a primary school, and they have two adult sons. He is the first Church of Ireland bishop to openly support same-sex marriage. He is involved in education debates and in charity work. He chairs the board of directors of Saint Luke’s Charity, Cork, which focuses on the elderly and dementia sufferers. He is also chairman of the board of governors of Midleton College.
At the episcopal ordination of Bishop Fintan Gavin as Catholic bishop of Cork and Ross in June 2019, Colton presents the crosier at Bishop Gavin’s own request.
As of June 2020, Colton is the longest-serving bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross since bishop William Lyon in 1617 and also the longest serving bishop still in office in the Anglican churches of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. He is the author of almost a dozen book chapters, mostly in the area of the interface between religion and law.
seamus dubhghaill 