The Irish bishops attended an Ad Limina meeting in 1992 where the late Pope St John Paul II principally instructed them on their duty regarding abortion as there was some perception of weakness in the wake of the X Case. In the course of the meeting, the bishops called on several dicasteries, including the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. The President of the Commission was Antonio Cardinal Innocenti. Bishop Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin of Kerry called on the Commission and came away of the opinion, rightly or wrongly, that the Commission would leave arrangements in his diocese up to him without intervention. In 1993, he received petitions for a regular traditional Mass from Cahirciveen, Killarney and Tralee. He answered negatively, citing the conversation he had with Cardinal Innocenti. I am sure the cardinal was delighted with that, especially as the letter addressed to one of the lead petitioners, Mrs Hannah McCarthy in Cahirciveen was featured in the US Latin Mass Magazine, with a commentary by Roger McCaffrey.
One result of the refusal was the coming of the Society of St Pius X into the Kerry diocese, where they have had Masses at various locations since then. Renewed petitions to Mgr Ó Súilleabháin, who died in 1994, and his successor Dr William Murphy, got nowhere until after Summorum Pontificum, but that was still a decade and a half away.
I can't say with any certainty that Bishop Ó Súilleabháin's relation of his conversation with the cardinal had any influence over subsequent events. But what I can say is that after this Kerry petition failed, nothing positive emerged in Ireland between Bishop Ó Súilleabháin's refusal of the Kerry petitions in 1993 and the granting of permission for Mass in Bruckless in Co Donegal in 1999. There is a strong temptation to conclude post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
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