Thursday 14 September 2017

CORMAC MURPHY O'CONNOR

Image result for cardinal cormac murphy-o'connor

YESTERDAY IN WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL IN LONDON THEY BURIED THE 85 YEAR OLD CARDINAL CORMAC MURPHY O'CONNOR - A MAN WITH NOT ONE - BUT THREE IRISH NAMES.

His family was originally from County Cork.

Here is what the editor of the English Catholic Herald said about him:

THE CATHOLIC HERALD by Luke Coppen

Tall, imposing and jovial, the cardinal moved skilfully through Vatican corridors
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor took on leadership of the English Church amid political and ecclesiastical turmoil
There was an unnerving moment during Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s installation at Westminster Cathedral in March 2000. The new spiritual leader of Catholics in England and Wales stumbled on the marble altar steps, and it looked as if his 6ft 4in frame would come crashing to the ground. But at the last second he caught himself and carried on. This was, with hindsight, a fitting metaphor for his choppy years as Archbishop of Westminster.
Murphy-O’Connor’s appointment to England’s premier see was a surprise. He had been preparing for retirement, not national leadership, when he received the nuncio’s call. Yet he was a shrewd choice, because he embodied the unique character of English Catholicism. In him, the Church’s two historic wings – Irish immigrants and the aristocracy – met and were reconciled.
He bore not just one but two Irish names thanks to his grandfather, who joined his surname with his half-brother’s when they went into the wine trade. Despite being born in Reading, Murphy-O’Connor spoke with an Irish lilt and had the easy charm associated with his ancestral land. Yet Clifford Longley once described him as “every inch a dog-walking, golfing, rugger- and piano-playing English country gentleman”. Though firmly middle class (his father was a doctor from County Cork), he moved comfortably in upper-class circles. He became a friend of the Duke of Norfolk during his more than two decades as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, and England’s senior Catholic layman is said to have helped him to Westminster.
Cardinal Basil Hume, the popular 9th Archbishop of Westminster, was perhaps the first to see Murphy-O’Connor’s full potential. In 1999, on his deathbed, he told him: “Cormac, you will have to take over this job.” Under Hume, the English Catholic Church had grown in confidence, if not in overall numbers. To be a Catholic was no longer to be a suspicious outsider. His unpretentious Benedictine spirituality resonated with the English and he welcomed an influx of high-profile converts, as well as hundreds of ex-Anglican clergy. Hume’s establishment project – his desire for Catholics to find a place at the heart of British affairs – had advanced further than he could have hoped.
After Hume’s passing, Murphy-O’Connor took up the project enthusiastically. Following the Queen Mother’s death in 2002, he became the first cardinal for centuries to read a scriptural passage at an English royal funeral. Later that year, at Sandringham, he was the first Catholic cleric since 1688 to preach a sermon to the reigning monarch. He considered taking a seat in the House of Lords and even prepared the opening of his first speech (“As my predecessor, Cardinal Pole, was saying …”). But he declined the offer after Rome vetoed it. He initially criticised the Act of Settlement, the law barring Catholics from inheriting the throne. But after a backlash he dropped the matter, saying that the Act would be quietly discarded one day.
Like most English bishops, Murphy-O’Connor broadly welcomed the ascendancy of New Labour in 1997, after almost two decades of Tory rule. He thought that the Church could help the government, led by the Catholic-friendly Tony Blair, to repair Britain’s frayed social fabric.
It was not to be. In 2006 Alan Johnson, then education secretary, tried to impose a quota of non-Catholic pupils on new Catholic schools. An outcry, led by bishops, resulted in what one observer called the “fastest U-turn in British political history”. The following year, with Cabinet ministers still smarting, Murphy-O’Connor asked for an exemption from gay adoption laws. Blair’s power had by now melted away and he was unable to find a compromise. The Church was forced to close or cut ties with its adoption agencies. This brute display of secularist might angered the cardinal. In one of our final email exchanges, he said that he still felt strongly about the episode 10 years later.
Murphy-O’Connor had taken the Hume project as far as it could go. It was true that the Establishment was no longer fiercely Anglican, but it had been invaded by an aggressive secularism no less hostile to the Catholic Church. Full admission required the abandonment of Catholic principles. Murphy-O’Connor had come to believe that it was better to remain at the margins. “There is still a sense that being Catholic is being different,” he told me in 2012. “You’re not part of the Establishment and most Catholics wouldn’t want to be.”
Murphy-O’Connor longed to unify England’s Christians. Tears had filled his eyes when Dr Robert Runcie welcomed Pope John Paul II to Canterbury Cathedral in 1982. He was not alone in thinking that this symbolic moment would be followed by the recognition of Anglican orders, leading to intercommunion between Catholics and Anglicans. As co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), he saw one obstacle after another topple – until the Church of England voted to ordain women priests in 1992.
His soaring hopes then gave way to a good-natured realism. Rome and Canterbury wouldn’t become one in his lifetime, but he insisted that ecumenism was a “road with no exits” (an unsettling image, but one that got across the sense of permanence). Rarefied theological dialogue was giving way to an “ecumenism of life”, in which the faithful worked side by side as if they were already united.
His greatest trial came a few months after his installation at Westminster, when the media discovered that he had mishandled an abuse case in Arundel and Brighton. In 1985, he had appointed Fr Michael Hill as a chaplain to Gatwick Airport, despite reports that the priest was a danger to children. Hill had wept, got down on his knees and begged Murphy-O’Connor to give him a new post. Viewing himself as a spiritual father and Hill as a wayward son, he gave in, characteristically letting his heart overrule his head. At Gatwick, Hill abused a boy with learning difficulties and was convicted of nine counts of indecent assault in 1997. Murphy-O’Connor came under pressure to resign the See of Westminster, but never seriously considered it.
While others might have felt compelled to step aside, he accepted full responsibility for his error and tried to ensure that bishops would never again reassign abusers. He asked Lord Nolan, an authority on probity in public life, to review the Church’s child protection procedures. Nolan urged the Church in England and Wales to adopt some of the most stringent measures in the Catholic world. Despite complaints from clergy, who felt the new rules treated them as guilty until proven innocent, the bishops adopted the reforms. This marked a breakthrough for Murphy-O’Connor, who otherwise struggled to impose consensus on the bishops’ conference. But it put new strain on his relationships with priests.
Murphy-O’Connor’s openness to married clergy and his belief that condoms were sometimes licit in the fight against Aids placed him at the liberal end of the global Catholic spectrum. While he had great reverence for John Paul II and Benedict XVI, he felt they had stifled some of Vatican II’s revolutionary insights. He took Cardinal Hume’s place in the St Gallen group, named after the Swiss city where like-minded cardinals such as the Italian Cardinal Martini and the Belgian Cardinal Danneels had met since 1996. Members discussed how a new kind of pope might emerge to lead the Church in a more progressive direction.
Murphy-O’Connor’s ecclesiastical career flourished even though he was at odds with Rome’s prevailing conservatism. That was because of his Romanitas: his intuitive ability to navigate Vatican corridors, developed during his years as a student in Rome and then as rector of the English College. Although he often froze in front of the cameras, he was fluent and funny in ecclesiastical settings. With his imposing height, firm handshake and jovial storytelling, he resembled one of those formidable Irish-American bishops who flourished in the last century. Like them, he also had a calculating side just visible beneath the bonhomie.
Only occasionally did his instincts fail him: at a dinner with cardinals after Benedict XVI’s election he began what he hoped would be a rousing chorus of Ad Multos Annos. “I thought everyone knew it and they’d all join in,” he recalled, “but nobody did. And so I carried on right until the end, just me, in front of Pope Benedict, and all these cardinals.”
He received the ultimate sign of Vatican approval in 2001, when John Paul II gave him the red hat. Among the others elevated that day was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. From then on, they were seated together at Vatican events and built a rapport.
Murphy-O’Connor said that his heart leapt when his friend emerged on the balcony of St Peter’s as Pope Francis in 2013. Two days later, in the Hall of Benedictions, Francis smiled and told him: “It’s your fault! What have you done to me?” As he was over 80, Murphy-O’Connor hadn’t voted in the conclave, but he had helped to create the buzz around his Argentine colleague.
He welcomed the austere Jesuit’s efforts to change the culture of the Catholic Church. With a direct line to the papacy, he arguably enjoyed more influence in his retirement than he had ever had at Westminster.
I remember coming away from an interview with Murphy-O’Connor a few years ago with the impression that he envied those mystics who could spend hours in contemplation away from the world’s cares. He had taken a different path: dogged service of the institutional Church. Whether as a curate in Portsmouth or as Archbishop of Westminster, he had simply done what he had been asked to do as conscientiously as possible.

At his eventful installation Mass in Westminster Cathedral, he recalled that he had once found a stone commemorating a Celtic saint in the Outer Hebrides. “Pilgrim Cormac,” it said, “went beyond what was deemed possible.” That would be a fitting epitaph for Murphy-O’Connor himself.

PAT SAYS:

Cormac Murphy O'Connor never rocked any church boats. He was a safe pair of hands and simply a "manager".

His memory will be overshadowed by his appointment of the paedophile priest, Fr Michael Hill, as chaplain to Gatwick Airport AFTER he had already abused young boys.

In Gatwick Hill went on to sexually abuse a boy with learning difficulties in the chapel of the airport.


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After Hill got out of prison the diocese of Arundel and Brighton housed him in a church owned apartment three minutes walk from a primary school.

Murphy O'Connor said he did not properly understand paedophilia at the time!

Growing up in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s I knew that paedophilia was "dirty" and wrong.

I do not swallow that "we did not understand paedophilia" lark at all.

Nonetheless, the Catholic Church went on to make CMO'C an archbishop and a cardinal and a pope maker.

At the end of the day, they do look after their own.

Yesday CMO'C was given a big funeral - TICKET ONLY ADMISSION - and will be buried in the floor of Westminster Cathedral.

People who knew him say he was a "nice man".

Is it enough to be a "nice man" ? Is it enough for a Christian leader to be "nice"?

AFTER THOUGHT:

A couple of years ago I had a wedding in the chapel of Trinity College Dublin. An English tourist was surprised to see a Catholic bishop on the steps of Trinity Chapel and came over to me. He turned out to be a next door neighbour of the retired Cardinal CMO'C's in a district in London where the houses were in the multi million bracket. I asked him if he knew his neighbour. He replied:

"No, he does not mix with the neighbours - but after dark, we take a look in his bin to see what wine he is drinking and go and buy it. The cardinal likes fine wines".

Hopefully, there are Michelin Star wine bars in Heaven where they serve Pomerol :-)


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104 comments:

  1. This is the second time in as many weeks that you have spoken ill of the dead. Both Fr Haughey and Murphy-O'Connor have never, to our knowledge, hurt or defamed you Pat. Yet you are very comfortable telling anecdotes which put them in a bad light. No one is asking you to tell lies about the dead, at least show them some respect and dignity. Imagine talking about the contents of a dead person's bin ! You're supposed to be a man of God. Catch yerself on Pat.

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  2. I knew this was coming. Another opportunity for baseless character assisination...and of the dead once more. Let's see all the very Christian commentary.

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    1. 6:45 and 8:02 Most of the material on today's Blog comes from the editor of the CATHOLIC Herald!

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    2. The commentary after The Catholic Herald excerpt is the part which contains the tasteless info. - -

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  3. CMOC was a mover and shaker in the Mafia-like St Gallen group, made up of ancient Spirit of Vatican II cardinals such as that other paedophile enabler Danneels of Brussels. They tried to get Bergolio elected in the 2005 conclave and then succeeded after Benedict fled from the wolves.

    An interesting fact about CMOC is that despite being born in Reading and going to a public school in Bath he had an Irish accent all his life. His siblings didn't. It's suggested that it's because he was very close to his Irish-born mother.

    CMOC was yet another prelate who climbed the greasy pole after doing a token stint in a parish. In his case he spent years as Private Secretary to Derek Worlock (who himself spent years as a Private Secretary) before going to Rome to the congenial post of rector of the English College. Then he was parachuted into Arundel & Brighton and went on to succeed Hume, the posh anti-Irish monk who had never worked in a parish and whose preferment was stitched up by the Duke of Norfolk.

    Pat is totally correct when he says it is nonsense that paedophiles weren't known about. Although the term didn't have widespread currency the concept was very well known and the sin has rightly been taboo for millennia.

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    1. The accent might also be attributed to the fact that he went to school for a time in Cork during WWII when his parents sent him over to live with relatives.

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    2. Were his siblings sent to Cork too?

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    3. His accent was never Irish; it was much too 'plummy' for this.

      A typical Catholic Herald fiction.

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    4. Er, it was. I met him. Listen to him on the Desert Island Discs archive. Irish accents can be very plummy.

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    5. Whoever 16:01 is, he or she has made a more literate comment than yours, the adult equivalent of a child's tetchy 'S'not true, so s'not!'

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    6. 15:37, Irish accents 'plummy'? Dream on.

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    7. 20:40, your mention of 'lust and selfishness' in the context I referred to (love) shows, perhaps, your own preoccupation with these vices. Yes?

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  4. His reassignment of Michael Hill on "pastoral" grounds is typical of the pattern exposed by the Murphy report, which found that canon law wasn't enforced and bishops were all nice and caring to sinning priests, and then parishes had to take their chances. In an era of "Bishop Sean" etc (how humble, how informal), it's forgotten that a crozier has two highly symbolic ends. The crook at the top to gather in the lost sheep, and the point at the end to drive away the wolves that would devour the sheep. Every single bishop who moved a paedophile priest from parish to parish should have been unseated by Rome with a zero tolerance policy. That would have helped prevented the Church's reputation being destroyed in the secular world.

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    1. You've answered your own query. Those ends of the crozier were entirely symbolic, that is, they weren't to be taken seriously as a collective 'job description'. Like so many other symbols in the Catholic Church, they exist effectively as mere ornaments.

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    2. So bishops shouldn't gather in the lost sheep or protect the flock?

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    3. John 10 is part of the job description of bishops. But I realise in posting this I don't have the imprimatur and nihil obstat of Magna Carta so there's a high chance that I'm a moronic fool.

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    4. Where was the query, MC? I hope that you've been refreshed by a few sharpeners at the Dog and Duck but please let us know that your infallibility is intact.

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    5. 16:03 and 16:42, you are unbelievable, the pair of you. Bishops themselves are mere symbols...of Christ, the only shepherd.

      Bishops can't gather in the lost sheep or protect the flock: they are not Christ.

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    6. 18:04, how is your remark relevant to my comment (s)?

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    7. 16:52, your query was implicit: you wondered why, given the symbolism of the crozier, bishops didn't do what these symbols suggest they do. And I answered that the symbols were mere ornaments rather than indicators of episcopal function.

      My 'infallibility' is intact. Thank you for asking.

      Er, when's 'happy hour' at the Dog and Duck?

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    8. 16:42, if you are a 'moronic fool', remember you said it.😆

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    9. Re 20:38 God! The fools that post here.

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    10. Fools, fools, drunk fools like Magna. So, so boring....

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    11. 22:55, hiya Big Lil shit 'er arse!��

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  5. Sounds like O C was one of the old princes of the church who has now gone the way of the great multitudes. Perhaps like the Royal Family the church needs to make its upper strata more relevant to the ordinary people. As it stands it is a long way from the model of early church.

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    1. A very, very long way. (And an even longer way from the model of discipleship insisted upon by Christ.)

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    2. Magna, at 15.44. Do you live in a straw house? You are wonderful at making sweeping judgments broad statements but I think you are unfair and your unfairness in assessment carries pure, deliberate nastiness. It's amazing what makes some peolle come alive!! I often wonder if such, like you Magna, are as "alive"" with Christian compassion and forgiveness.

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    3. 15:44, that log in your eye must be extremely painful...and limiting.

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    4. What's your problem, 17:49? Are you averse to Jesus' instruction that his disciples are to be servants, not masters? Do you know better than Jesus?😆

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  6. Why do you call yourself a Catholic bishop pat?

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  7. Because I am.

    Note: I do not call myself a Roman Catholic bishop.

    Nor do I claim to be a member of the RC hierarchy.

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  8. OC retired to Dukes Avenue, Chiswick, London where the houses are priced between £ 2 million and £ 5 million.

    Westminster PP.

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    1. "The poor you will always have with you".

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    2. Why would an OAP need a 5/6 bedroom multi million pound house?

      Why did he not stay in a presbytery and help out in a parish.

      What were the costs of running his mansion?

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    3. I think we all have accept that the church is more Wolf Hall than the Holy Family. I honestly don't think that a person with an honest streak would last 2 minutes. A lot were trained in this from aged 12. They have to be 'company men' as that is the only family they have. When there has been no freedom of speech in the church for about 40 years, the St Galen's meetings were the only way to bring about reform. I like Pope Francis. I think he picks the right fights. I don't deify him. He a wily old fox and that is what is needed. I studied medieval history at school. Whenever someone came along called the 'pious', I always thought,"He'll last 2 months".

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    4. Have you thought of turning Anglican? Everything Catholic libs desire is found there in full flower. Catholics who dislike the church and its teachings and then leave it have much more integrity than those who remain and moan and groan in an organisation in which membership is voluntary.

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    5. @11:35. Paddy Walsh, emeritus of Down and Connor, has a three bedroom house in a leafy suburb of Belfast.

      Meanwhile, in Enniskillen, the next bishop of Clogher lives alone in the five bedroom parochial house. Across the street, the one and only curate has the run of two houses, with a total of five flats within, each equipped with a sitting room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Look up 4-6 Darling Street, Enniskillen on google street view. The other curate has a large house in the countryside outside Enniskillen.

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    6. We use some of the Darling St house as office space. Not that long ago, there would have been three curates in that house and the Monsignor across the road directly.

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    7. God forbid that the current PP of Enniskillen would become the next bishop of Clogher! He hasn't got what it takes.........he desperately wants it but he's a prentender to the throne. He spends most of his time in the company of the Church of Ireland Dean of Clogher who is his nearest neighbour. Nothing of note ever happens in the C of I cathedral without the PP being present - in fact he's more protestant than the protestantss themselves. If he becomes bishop of Clogher the priests will be jumping of the ship as quick as lightening.
      There's is several wannabe bishops in Clogher - let us hope it passes by every one of them.

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    8. At one time there were four curates. But the parish also has the big former AIB bank as the parish office, plus 6 Darling Street for the CCMS. Why doesn't the PP move across the street, or the curate go in the opposite direction. In the Enniskillen PP's house, 1 Darling St, Enniskillen, there's a self-contained flat from the days of a resident housekeeper. The curate could live there.

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    9. 13:22, why should they 'leave' the Church? It doesn't belong to the clergy; it is not theirs to do with as they please.

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    10. Both the PP of Enniskillen and the curate of the same parish have expensive tastes.......God forbid that either of those two would have to share a house - they wouldn't lower themselves.

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  9. More untruths being placed here today. Pat, your vocation is simple - laze about all day and gather information, then twist and present it to suit your perspectives, which mostly are all about "self righteous" Pat! Everyone else is mortally wounded, wrong and damned.

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    1. What untruths?

      Did OC not live where the comment maker says he did?

      In God's eyes no one is "mortally" wounded.

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    2. Pat you are the typical example of clericalism. You embody it.

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    3. The current PP of Enniskillen loves wearing his purple cassock. I don't know whether he is a Monsignor as of right, or ex-officio as a Vicar General of the diocese.

      I grew up in Enniskillen and none of his predecessors, who were monsignori and canons ever wore the purple. Peter O'Reilly is the first to do so and it may be a NI Catholic inferiority complex thing and a desire to impress his Anglican buddies.

      When the current PP of Enniskillen was working on Lough Derg he bought incredibly expensive chasubles from America. Aul Joe Duffy, sometime bishop of Clogher took a fancy to them so Peter would hire them out to Joe for special occasions.

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    4. Peter is so far up his own arse it's scary! Full of his own importance......and always in cahoots with the Anglicans. The year the Queen visited Enniskillen daily mass was cancelled in the chapel and the seats were removed just so she could wander through the building. The PP was fawning over her - it was laughable. No....bishop material he most certainly isn't!

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    5. It was ludicrous that the pews were removed for Brenda's five second visit to the Catholic church in Enniskillen. The Anglicans didn't do it across the road. Peter O'Reilly had high hopes that Brenda would give him a knighthood there and then on the spot.

      Brenda, in all her long reign has never attended a Mass. A while back they were ecstatic at Westminster cathedral when she deigned to visit it. No Mass of course so instead they had choral vespers.

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  10. For your information, Fr Paul Symonds forfeited his OBE on Tuesday 15 August 2017 and a notice to this effect was published in the London Gazette on that date.

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    1. https://m.thegazette.co.uk/notice/2844087 The Queen has taken it off him. I would guess she wasn't amused at his fondness for young lads' feet, etc.

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    2. There are several others on the list removed for the same reason.

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    3. The same reason? All they have in common is that her maj has given them the boot. As to why, it's anyone's guess.

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  11. "THE GAZETTE

    THE QUEEN has directed that the appointment of Paul SYMONDS to be an Officer of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, dated 29 December 2007, shall be cancelled and annulled and that his name shall be erased from the Register of the said Order".

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  12. Was the old queen not a member of the Dolan apostolic visitation to Gaynooth? I wonder.

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    1. She was. Not that it made any difference. Gaynooth only implemented one of the secret Dolan report recommendations. A set of doors was placed across the St Mary's cloister to separate off the last bit of the vast campus still occupied by seminarians. The doors are left open so are purely symbolic.

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    2. Cormac was picked because he was (a) a cardinal; (b) English speaking; and (c) a former seminary rector. The only problem is that the seminary over which he presided, the English College Rome, was and is even gayer than Gaynooth.

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    3. @12:52, Who? Paulie Symonds? Or Lizzie the 2nd?

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    4. Cormac, though Brenda's predecessor George III founded the Royal College of St Patrick at Maynooth.

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  13. You'd think that Her Majesty could do with a chiropodist by Royal Appointment. I'm impressed that a blog reader consults the London Gazette. I'm more a Belfast Gazette reader, tbh.

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  14. His children won't be able to have their weddings in St Paul's Cathedral, which is the right of children of Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

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    1. I'm sure his children will be awfully disappointed.

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    2. Ha ha! - - His children will get over it, believe me...

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  15. I'm surprised the wounded healer wasn't in attendance at Westminister yesterday. He normally doesn't miss an opportunity to rub Rome's nose in it after they forced him to walk the plank.

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    1. The Flybe flight from Belfast City to Gatwick was delayed by fog. The Healer was ragin' and needed some healing in the executive lounge at the airport. He and Noel Treanor shared a bag of dry roasted nuts.

      Senior air steward.

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    2. Forced him to walk the plank? What plank?

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    3. Your head is as thick as a plank, MC.

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    4. 14:25... Senior air steward my arse!
      Stick to taking the tablets. They where lucky not to have you as their 'imaginary' flight attendant!

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    5. 17:25, ah, but its splinters are very sharp.😆

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  16. Pat asks, "Is it enough for a Christian leader to be "nice"?" Of course not. But maybe it should be a basic requirement when a Christian leader is being chosen. I struggle to remember any of the clerics I've known over the years as truly "nice".

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    1. The nice are kicked out of seminaries early on. In my time in Gaynooth, the then Middle Dean, Niall Ahern, launched a vindictive campaign against a popular, holy and scholarly seminarian who was well adjusted. You could have a laugh with him and he was kind. His crime was that he had an austere room and a big crucifix on the wall. Niall hated that.

      In all institutions the nasty and vicious prosper and horrible people learn the rules needed to get on. They in turn succeed to the top jobs. The remainder, the nice ones, jet the lowly jobs, are sacked or their applications are declined. And so it goes on, unfortunately.

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    2. Yes, one remembers that "popular,
      holy and scholarly" seminarian. Mad as a box of frogs. Thank God for NA. He was very observant and astute. He could detect a header at ten paces.

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    3. Did NA look in the mirror?

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    4. At any gathering of priests ask them what they thought of Canon Ahern lol.

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  17. I was at Westminster Cathedral yesterday at Cormac's funeral. I had a ticket. The applications for tickets were oversubscribed 5 times. A reflection of the great affection and esteem CMOC was held in by people from every walk of life. His coffin was a simple English oak box with a simple wooden crucifix.
    Unlike the funerals of his predecessors he was not up on a high catafalque but his coffin sat on little stands. He was a credit to Ireland, never snooty and down to earth. Although a cardinal he retained the common touch. RIP

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    1. I don't know if solid wood lead lined caskets are "cheap?

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    2. Servants are not meant to be distinquished socially in death with catafalque.

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    3. Ticket only funerals in cathedrals can't really be described as simple.

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  18. Please don't tell me that this is an oblique reference to Magna Carta?

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    1. 20:07, I'd be insulted by an oblique reference; I deserve better.😆

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  19. It might have been a "solid English oak" coffin but it would not have been cheap. I think it would have been lead lined as well because he was being laid in a vault. I don't know how my aunt knows but she said his casket cost £5000. Not cheap

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    1. And guess who paid for his stylish send-off? (Psst! It wasn't the priests, since they, to a man, are out-and-out spongers.)

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    2. Magna, go back to your shack and leave us alone with your attempts at wit and sarcasm. You're a despicable specimen and just sheer crass. Hope in your death you receive some respect and dignity. Again, Pat tolerates your inner violence and madness too much. Shame on both of you. Shame.

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  20. Bishop Pat. I thought your fellow townie Bishop Micky Campbell would have played a much bigger part. He was one of big Cormacs blue eyed boys.

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    1. Those 'blue eyes' obviously turned 'brown' at some point. 😆

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    2. Magna, please refrain from damaging even more your already damaged mind. You reveal yourself today as a lunatic out of control. God help you!

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  21. Replies
    1. No, I don't hate you. Just telling it - the truth - as I see it expressed in and through your comments. I pity you but I wouldn't be knocking on your door at midnight looking for a loaf of bread. God only knows what I'd encounter. Or like Pat in his trips atound the country I'd borrow bouncers for protection! ����

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    2. I assure you that if you did this, I , in my naivety, would not only feed you, I should give up my very bed for you.

      I have done this for others. You wouldn't be the first.

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    3. Wouldn't want your bed Magna. I'd expect to witness a decency of humanity first and a promise that you wouldn't be crass and nasty. Such evil is contagious.����

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  22. Pat, just read posts today. My reaction - dismay. Cardinal Murphy O Connor has just been buried and you allow such villification of his memory. You tell us that the Memory of Jesus is Sacred and Subversive. Imagine - your arrogant claim to uphold his memory when you seek every opportunity to rush to condemn and judge everyone according to your standards, not those of Christ, whose heart was one of mercy, love, understanding and compassion. While Jesus condemned wrong of any kind, he also enabled people find new beginnings. I find you a most distasteful christian as you carry such heavy baggage of hatred, vengance and bias. I'd prefer the humanity and Christ-likeness of The Good Cardinal to your so called holding "sacred" the memory of Jesus.

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    Replies
    1. 'The Good Cardinal' was, very much, part of the English establishment.

      Jesus wss part of NO such establishment, and hevwss crucified for it .

      CCMOC?

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    2. May I, 22:26, 'borrow' your 'rose-tinted spectacles'?

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    3. Dear 22:26
      Do you not realise what serious error and those of like mind are indulging in?
      Surely you must realise that the only salvation for the church is
      A) Appoint Bishop Buckley as the new Pope. He has all the solutions we need:
      B) Appoint Magna Carta as Crown Prosecutor and Executioner. He is guaranteed to get of all morons, fools, imbeciles and lunatics. His Child Genius qualities would have a miraculous effect. He was once asked if he was God and never denied it.
      C) Sean Page is ideally qualified - priest - minister - rabbi - imam to unite peoples of all,faiths and none.
      D) MMM as a form of sweeper.

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  23. I spoke with fellow Clergy today regarding this article and we are all equally seething at how you can disrespect the dead in this way. Personally, I don't want any truck with what you say and do because you are just a self styled renegade Bishop. We buried a Cardinal yesterday who is worth a 1000th of you so please excuse us your mutterings and falsehoods.

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    Replies
    1. 'Worth a 1000th of you', so Cardinal Murphy O'Connor is valued by yourself to be worth a thousand times less than Bishop Pat? It is you Sir, and your clerical circle, who need to be excused from their 'mutterings and falsehoods'.

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  24. Yes, I was away today and have just caught up with today's posts too. Very unedifying I must say.
    I reckon I saw Pat today but decided to leave him his privacy.

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  25. On first reading the blog on the deceased about this time last night I felt some disquiet. While Coppen's words seemed measured and fair, I felt Pat's inappropriate both in content but particularly in timing.
    I decided to sleep on it.
    On reflection I feel exactly the same. Pat, irrespective of what you may say in defence or justification, your comments do you no credit on this occasion, and certainly add credence to those who criticise you as being solely intent on vilification of RC hierarchy irrespective of the merits of any particular individual.
    MMM

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  26. MMM, you are to be commended on your words at 00.06. You are one of the more balanced contributors on this blog, intelligent, fair and perceptive. I don't alwsys agree with your insights or analysis but on this you are spot on. I think Pat has damaged his credibility, conscience and integrity after his blog piece on Cardinal Murphy O Connor. It's his usual effort - villification of a good man. Pat should listen to you, not Magna. You at least are normal - Magna, a reservoir of negativity and angst. God grant the good Cardinal his deserved reward.

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  27. I had one dealing with the Cardinal concerning a very sensitive matter. I found him to be the essence of kindness, decency and compassion. It was related to clerical abuse. I could not fault him or his advice. We know that he made his own mistakes in the past and he was honest about them in the well known Fr Hill case. I believe he did his very best to make amends and left the Church in England and Wales a much safer place for children and young people. God bless you, Cardinal Cormac and may you be happy forever in Heaven. A faithful and good servant of God.

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