This article is from page 3 of the 2011-08-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
IT LOOKS certain that one of Ireland’s most controversial clerics, Bishop Eamon Casey, will never again say Mass in public after he was taken into a Clare nursing home last week because of ill health.
The former Bishop of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora has been in a virtual limbo in the parish of Shanaglish on the Clare/Galway border since his return to Ireland in 2006.
Bishop Casey has been technically a practicing priests for the parish but has not been allowed to say Mass locally and has instead had to content himself by saying Mass for himself in his home.
Bishop Casey, who is a popular figure in the locality, was admitted to a Clare nursing home last week for a period of “respite”. One local man, who is a close neighbour of Bishop Casey, says that the disgraced bishop is “a proud man” and is hoping to return to his own home as quickly as possible.
“I was told that he would be making an appearance in the local pub this week, that he would be given a passout for the night, but we will have to wait and see,” said one neighbour.
“I know that the woman from the shop in Gort will be asking me when he [Bishop Casey] be back in to collect his daily paper again. But we don’t know. He is a proud man and I have no doubt that he will want to back to his house in Shanaglish again soon.”
A spokesperson from the Galway Diocese declined to make any statement of the health of Bishop Casey yesterday saying it was a personal matter but did confirm that there had been no change is Bishop Casey’s position regarding saying Mass again locally.
Bishop Casey was one of Ireland’s most popular religious figures before it was discovered that he had fathered a child with an Irish American woman, Annie Murphy, in 1974. This was one of the biggest scandals ever to hit the Irish Church when it came to light in 1992 and prompted Bishop Casey to tender his resignation and leave the country.
After 1992, Bishop Casey then chose to embrace the life of a foreign missionary in South America and worked with members of the Missionary Society of St James in a rural parish in Ecuador.
After a number of years in South America he moved to England before returning again to Shanaglish in 2006.