DISGRACED BRADY TO PRESIDE AT DEENIHAN'S EPISCOPAL ORDINATION!

Media information for the Episcopal Ordination of Canon Tom Deenihan as the new Bishop of Meath

IRISH BISHOPS WEBSITE

You or a colleague are invited to attend the celebration of Mass for the Episcopal Ordination of the Canon Tom Deenihan as the new Bishop of Meath.  Details:

Time and date 3.00pm Mass on Sunday 2 September 2018

Venue Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, Diocese of Meath

In attendance Laity, religious, clergy, family and guests

Media arrangements: media centre, broadcasting and photographyAt 2:00pm on Sunday, Martin Long of the Catholic Communications Office will be available to brief journalists at the dedicated media centre located adjacent to the Cathedral in Saint Mary’s Primary School, College Street, Mullingar.  The media centre will offer internet access and refreshments until after the Mass.  

Available for all journalists:

• Ordination Booklet
• Words of welcome from Most Reverend Eamon Martin, Archbishop of Armagh
• Text of the homily
• Text of the Apostolic Mandate and photograph of the parchment
• Photos of the Crozier, Ring and Mitre which will be presented to the new bishop
• Heraldic Achievement (Coat of Arms) of the new bishop
• Words of Most Reverend Tom Deenihan before the Final Blessing

The Ordination Mass will be livestreamed on www.mullingarparish.ie/webcam. A large screen for viewing will be available in the media centre.

The diocese has retained Mr John McElroy as the official photographer for the Episcopal Ordination.  Media may contact Mr McElroy by telephone on 087 241 6985 and/or by email on johnmcelroyphotos@eircom.net to obtain photographs for publication purposes.

Following the conclusion of the Mass, and at the front door of the Cathedral, the newly consecrated Bishop Deenihan will greet members of the congregation in person.  Media representatives will have an opportunity for photographs.

Features of the Ordination ceremony, celebrants, preacher and in attendance

The Chief Ordaining Prelate will be Archbishop Eamon Martin, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, who will be assisted by Most Reverend Michael Smith, Bishop Emeritus of Meath and Most Reverend John Buckley, Bishop of Cork and Ross.  Rev Fergal Cummins, who will be ordained to the priesthood by the new Bishop of Meath on Sunday 30 September, will proclaim the Gospel.  The Apostolic Mandate from His Holiness Pope Francis will be read by Father Padraig McMahon, who serves as Cathedral Administrator and was ordained to the priesthood the same year as the new Bishop.  The homily will be preached by Father Denis McNelis, Parish Priest of Laytown and Mornington. Cardinal Séan Brady, Archbishop Emeritus of Armagh will preside at the Mass.

Other concelebrants for the Mass will include His Excellency Archbishop Jude Thaddaeus Okolo, Apostolic Nuncio; Bishop Dermot Farrell and Bishop Denis Nulty, both formerly priests of the Diocese of Meath; and several retired Prelates from Cork, including Archbishop Patrick Coveney and Bishop Padraig O’Donoghue. Bishop Fintan Monahan, who was ordained to the diaconate together with Bishop Deenihan in 1990 by Bishop Michael Smith, will also concelebrate the Mass.

Concelebrants at the Mass will include priests and religious clergy from the Diocese of Meath and from the Diocese of Cork & Ross.

Representatives of Christian denominations are expected to be in attendance including Bishop Paul Colton from Cork, Canon Alastair Graham from Mullingar and Father Kyrillos Hanna from the Coptic Orthodox community.

In attendance at the Mass will be family and friends of Bishop Deenihan; representatives of Church groups in the Dioceses of Meath and Cork & Ross, colleagues of the new Bishop from Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth and representatives of civic society.

During the ceremony Bishop Deenihan will exchange greetings with representatives of various aspects of life in the Diocese of Meath. These include the following:

• Oliver and Karen Gaffney from Castlepollard parish, with their children Brian (who will be confirmed by the new Bishop next year), Dylan and Sean;
• Jaison and Manju Kunnathuparambil and family, originally from Kerala in India;
• Tomás Nally from the Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes;
• Patrick and Kathleen Dinnegan from Mullingar parish;
• Janice Decaymat, a nurse who came to Ireland from the Philippines and is working in the caring profession;
• Mary Hughes and Martin Marshall who volunteer with the Westmeath homeless charity TEAM (Temporary Emergency Accommodation in the Midlands).

The music for the Mass will be provided by Mullingar Cathedral Choir and the Cathedral Choristers, under the direction of William Woods. Ronan McDonagh will be among a number of musicians taking part in the ceremony.

Notes to Editors

• His Holiness Pope Francis appointed Father Tom Deenihan as Bishop of Meath on 18 June 2018.  The Diocese of Meath includes the greater part of counties Meath, Westmeath and Offaly.  The Patron Saint of the diocese is Saint Finian.  According to the Irish Catholic Directory 2018 the diocese has a Catholic population of 270,000 and consists of 69 parishes and 149 churches.  There are 86 diocesan priests in active ministry in the diocese and 24 others who are currently working in other dioceses, retired, on study or on sick leave.  Living and working in the diocese, from religious congregations, there are 95 priests, 18 Brothers and 150 Sisters.  The Bishop of Meath is patron of 198 primary schools, and there are 38 voluntary secondary schools and State schools in the diocese.
• Please see below information on the life and ministry of Bishop Thomas Deenihan:

Tom Deenihan was born in the parish of Blackpool in Cork city on 20 June 1967.  He attended the North Monastery Christian Brothers School in the city.  After completing post-primary education, he studied in the national seminary of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth.  He was ordained a deacon by Bishop Michael Smith, Bishop of Meath, in Maynooth on 1 April 1990.  On 1 June 1991 he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Cork & Ross by the late Bishop Michael Murphy.

Since his ordination as a priest, Bishop-elect Deenihan worked in Glanmire Parish (1991-1994), taught in Saint Goban’s College Bantry (1994-2003) during which time he also worked in the parishes of Schull, Kealkil and Bantry.  During that time also he undertook a Masters and Doctoral Degree in Education.  In 2003, Bishop John Buckley, Bishop of Cork & Ross, appointed him as Diocesan Advisor for Post-Primary Catechetics and, in 2006, as Diocesan Secretary and Diocesan Education Secretary. 

On a national level, Bishop-elect Deenihan has served as the General Secretary of the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association from 2013 to 2016, and as acting-executive secretary to the Council for Education and to the Commission for Catholic Education and Formation of the Irish Episcopal Conference from 2016 to date.

Bishop-elect Deenihan is:
a member of the Honan Governors at University College Cork;
a member of Mercy Care South;
a Diocesan Public Juridic Person for the Mercy University Hospital in Cork;
chair of the Board of Directors of the Christian Leadership in Education Office. 

In 2017 Bishop John Buckley appointed him a Canon and a member of the Cathedral Chapter in Cork.

PAT SAYS:

The Irish RC Church is about to make one of the biggest mistakes it ever made in ordaining Deeminah and Bishop of Meath.

We know about many of the mistakes they have made in the past.

But we do not know about many others.

Ordaining Tom Deenihan is a mistake the Irish Hierarchy will come to regret very badly.

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Seminarians were McCarrick aides amid abuse investigation

by Ed Condon/CNA

MC CARRICK HAD ACCESS TO SEMINARIAN UNTIL 8 WEEKS AGO

MC CARRICK INSISTED ON SPECIAL PRIVATE MENU IN SEMINARY

 McCarrick had seminarian assistants until June 2018, about a year after the archdiocese knew he was being investigated

The Archdiocese of Washington has confirmed that seminarians were permitted to serve as assistants to Archbishop Theodore McCarrick while the archbishop was being investigated for the alleged sexual abuse of a teenager.

In 2011, McCarrick moved from a parish rectory to a house adjacent to the seminary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), a religious order, in Chillum, Md., within the Washington archdiocese.

According to two former IVE seminarians on campus at the time, McCarrick lived in a separate house on the grounds, which he paid for himself, or at least arranged to have purchased for him.

The IVE initially assigned McCarrick a priest to serve as secretary for him once he was living on the property. Sources confirm that the priest was assigned to live in the house with McCarrick.

Archdiocesan records confirm that priests were given this assignment, and a spokesman told CNA it is likely the archdiocese provided some financial support for the role.

Former IVE seminarians told CNA that McCarrick made significant demands of staff and formators. CNA was told, for example, that despite the austere lifestyle encouraged by the order, McCarrick had his own VIP menu served to him in the refectory, regardless of what the priests and seminarians were eating.

Local formators and superiors of the IVE were, according to CNA’s sources within the order, unhappy with the arrangement, but recognized that the liberal-minded McCarrick functioned as a sort of informal patron for the order, despite its more traditional leanings. McCarrick frequently ordained the order’s priests, in Washington and abroad, and helped them to navigate criticisms from South American bishops, including Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, who became Pope Francis.

The Institute of the Incarnate Word was founded in 1984 in Argentina by Fr. Carlos Miguel Buela. Buela retired in 2010 amid suspicion of sexual misconduct. In 2016, the Vatican affirmed the veracity of allegations that Buela engaged in sexual improprieties with adult seminarians of his community; the priest was forbidden by the Vatican from contact with members of the IVE, and from appearing in public.

McCarrick’s assistance has been reported to have been especially important to the order as allegations against Buela came to light. But sources say that help came with a price. One source characterized McCarrick’s attitude toward the group as “If you’re grateful, you’ll shut up.”

Eventually, the order withdrew the priest secretary assigned to McCarrick, citing the need for ordained priests to serve in active ministry. In his place, McCarrick arranged to have two IVE seminarians, known as “bedels” in the order, assigned to him.

These seminarians lived with McCarrick in his on-campus house and were responsible for driving him around Washington, accompanying him on trips, and essentially functioning as his personal staff.

It was not, according to seminarians who spoke with CNA, a prized assignment, and the bedels assigned to McCarrick were rotated each year.

One former IVE seminarian told CNA that complaints were raised about McCarrick’s demands – although none of them were sexual in nature – and said the rector warned seminarians to try to remain detached from McCarrick’s “worldly” tastes.

Some of the seminarians were, according to sources, obliged by McCarrick to take him on trips to see friends, including to a beach house, though it is not clear if this was the now much-reported house in New Jersey.

On at least one occasion, McCarrick obliged his bedels to accompany him to a casino, an incident which triggered strong complaints from the seminarians themselves and from their formators, who raised the matter with the order’s leadership in Rome.

The Archdiocese of Washington told CNA that the archdiocese did not regularly monitor McCarrick’s travel arrangements, and said it was unaware of the extent of the IVE seminarians’ involvement with McCarrick.

McCarrick eventually moved from the IVE property to a retirement home run by an order of religious sisters.

Archdiocesan spokesman Ed McFadden told CNA that McCarrick moved from the IVE campus for health reasons sometime in early 2017. However, a former senior IVE official told CNA that in the summer of 2016, Wuerl told the order he wanted McCarrick to leave his house on the seminary campus.

The source said this was communicated by the Archdiocese of Washington to the seminary rector and the provincial superior of the order. The source, who had first-hand knowledge of the event, said that Wuerl had previously been very “hands off” about McCarrick’s stay with the IVE, until the summer of 2016, when the IVE was told that Wuerl wanted McCarrick to be “less active and more retired” and to keep a “lower profile.”

The Archdiocese of Washington would not confirm the intervention but said that any discussion in the summer of 2016 between the IVE and the Archdiocese of Washington would have concerned McCarrick’s failing health.

A source familiar with the case told CNA on Aug. 25 that Wuerl was informed in the summer of 2017 that McCarrick was being investigated in New York for an allegation of sexual abuse. The source said that Wuerl communicated directly with McCarrick at that time, encouraging him to withdraw from public ministry. Based on McCarrick’s subsequent travel records and engagements, this request was ignored.

Two IVE seminarians remained assigned to McCarrick after this notification, with the knowledge of the Archdiocese of Washington, until late June 2018, when the Archdiocese of New York publicly announced a credible allegation that McCarrick sexually abused a teenager in the 1970s. Reports subsequently emerged that McCarrick had allegedly engaged for decades in sexually coercive and abusive misconduct with seminarians and priests.

While IVE seminarians did not continue to live with McCarrick following his move, they were still responsible for meeting his daily staffing requirements and traveling with him.

The Archdiocese of Washington told CNA that the IVE was informed of the allegation against McCarrick as soon as it was deemed credible, in June 2018.

McCarrick’s arrangement with the IVE, including the assignment of two seminarians to live with him and act as his personal staff, appears highly irregular in the light of the restrictions Archbishop Carlo Viganò claims were imposed on him by Pope Benedict XVI.

CNA previously reported a meeting in which McCarrick was ordered by papal nuncio Archbishop Pietro Sambi to leave a different seminary where he had been living. McCarrick moved subsequently into a parish, and from there he moved to the IVE property.

Despite evidence that the archdiocese approved renovations to the parish rectory for McCarrick, and the IVE’s reports that Wuerl intervened to move McCarrick from that property, CNA has been repeatedly told by the Archdiocese of Washington that “Archbishop McCarrick typically made his own housing arrangements and did not directly involve the Archdiocese of Washington.”

Wuerl has also denied being informed of the restrictions reportedly placed on McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI, and in July denied being aware of rumors about McCarrick’s sexual behavior before the New York investigation began.