Ecclesia Dei Adflicta in Ireland

If Gay Byrne called the response of the Irish Bishops to Quattuor Abhinc Annos grudging, he might have had a point.  The Sunday Mass in St Gabriel's Hospital in Cabinteely, unadvertised as it was, drew a typical attendance of 25 people.  The competition at the Church of St John the Evangelist on the Mouttown Road did much better.  This was to change in 1987 when Father Emerson was replaced by the Quebec native Father Daniel Couture.  I will address this later in the blog, but the Indult Mass in Dublin was crawling.

Archbishop LeFebvre and his ally Bishop de Castro Meyer consecrated four new bishops in Econe in 1988 resulting in the excommunication of the six and a potential schism.  John Paul II's response was the Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei Adflicta.  This initially was taken quite seriously in Ireland.  At the time, the RTÉ religious affairs correspondent was Kieron Wood, who was a faithful adherent of the traditional Latin Mass.  He had been associated with the Society of St Pius X, but after the excommunications he changed to the indult Mass.  This was also to change.

Archbishop Connell considered giving the indult Mass a city location and the Poor Clares in Harold's Cross was suggested.  However, the community did not want this and the priest-in-charge, Mgr Moloney announced it would be cancelled.  Kieron Wood contacted Mgr Moloney and told him he would be waiting outside the convent with a camera crew asking people what they thought.  Mgr Moloney rang him back soon afterward and told him the Mass was going ahead in Ss Michael and John's, Wood Quay which is in the city centre.  Thanks to Kieron's promotion of the Mass, 500 people showed up at the inaugural Mass in Ss Michael's and John's in summer 1988.  This congregation levelled off, but it was always at least more than a couple of hundred.

Other dioceses took the Holy Father's request seriously too.  A Sunday Mass was inaugurated in Belfast by Bishop Cathal Daly.  The problem here was that it alternated between two chapels in the city, in West Belfast and South Belfast on alternative months.  Like in Dublin, there was a roster of priests at the beginning, but unlike Dublin they retired or died quickly - but I am running ahead of the narrative.  At first there was Mass every Sunday in Belfast.

Bishop Edward Daly of Derry set up a Mass on the First Thursday of the month (no, I don't understand the logic of that either) in Derry's Nazareth house and said the first Mass himself, becoming the first bishop in Ireland to offer the traditional Latin Mass since the liturgy changed.

Bishop Séamus Hegarty of Raphoe allowed the Dean of the Diocese, Mgr Deegan, say Mass every Saturday morning in his parish church in Raphoe, Co Donegal.  A priest of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, Father Pádraig Ó Fithchill, was active in this diocese and said Mass at various locations every Sunday in Donegal.  I will have more to say of Father Ó Fithchill later.

A group from Sligo petitioned Bishop Dominic Conway of Elphin to allow the Mass be said every Sunday in Sligo and this commenced in Sligo's Nazareth House in 1990.

Archbishop Joseph Cassidy of Tuam allowed Father Alan Wilders, a priest of the Brighton & Arundel diocese, to say the traditional Mass every day at the school he opened in Islandeady Co Mayo some time earlier.

Finally, Bishop Thomas Finnegan of Killala permitted Father Robert Ruttledge say the traditional Mass in the Pastoral Centre on the grounds of St Muredach's Cathedral in Ballina, Co Mayo on the 3rd Sunday in the month beginning in 1992.

This is how the application of the Apostolic Letter in regard to older form of the Roman Rite Mass began in Ireland in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Not overwhelming, but not bad either.  But the story has yet to unfold.