Enter Michael Davies...

 My first meeting with Michael Davies was the first time I did the Paris-Chartres walk.  This was in 1995.  I went with the Baden-Württemberg chapter, but I spent time with the British and American chapters too, and did my best to connect with people.  There was no Irish chapter at this stage, but there were a group of Irish people with the British chapter - this was organised by the Brandsma Review.  Michael Davies was walking with the American chapter organised The Remnant newspaper.

So the fact he was going to address the Ecclesia Dei Ireland AGM was something to look forward too.  He gave a talk about the Prayer Book revolt in Cornwall in the reign of Edward VI.  This was an interesting talk in itself but it was the rest of the meeting which exposed the weakness of Ecclesia Dei Ireland.  I am going to do a further post of the issue of Requiem Masses, especially in the Archdiocese of Dublin, but at this point, I will just describe the proceedings of the EDI meeting.  A number of people had received permission in writing to have the traditional Mass for their funerals.  This sparked a lively discussion.  At some point in the deliberations, somebody raised the question of traditional Extreme Unction.

The trouble about all this was first of all, it made a statement about the age and priorities of the group.  I have no idea how Michael Davies reacted to it.  Secondly, a lot of the petitioning was personalised.  There was no place here for developing strategies or tactics to get the traditional Mass to places it was.  The SSPX made its presence felt and I saw a couple more or less monopolise him after Mass the following day.

In the course of the meeting, the AGM voted to affiliate with the FIUV, of which Michael was then the president.  I thought this was curious.  Three years before this was voted down.  Two years before, the vote wasn't put because the society voted not to amend its constitution to exclude clergy from governing positions.  This year, that issue wasn't addressed and remained unaddressed.  But Michael was never very interested in legal niceties.  EDI applied for membership of the FIUV.

Michael Davies came to Ireland with a dual purpose.  EDI only made up one part of this.  The other was the proposal to re-order Carlow Cathedral.  Most older Irish churches, let alone cathedrals, suffered some vandalism in the name of the Second Vatican Council, but this topic would require a blog in its own right to cover the problem.  Carlow Cathedral was one of the few Irish cathedrals which was unscathed and the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Laurence Ryan, was determined he was not going to allow this distinction continue.  

The resistance group in Carlow were more determined and most of them had petitioned for the traditional Mass shortly before.  Michael certainly encouraged them and they got straight to work.  There would be a few more years of campaigning which ended up in a High Court action.  But that is all ahead of us.

The first item on the agenda..

 I think it was Brendan Behan who said the first item on the agenda of any Irish organisation was the split.  Traditional Catholics are notoriously fractious the world over.  I know there was controversy on the LMSI/EDI committee at a very early stage, but the first major problem to arise was around the character of Father Pádraig Ó Fithchill.

Even before any question was raised, the fact that the society was headed by a priest caused an immediate problem.  The international federation of lay Catholics seeking the traditional Mass and sacraments, Federatio Internationalis Una Voce was precisely that, a lay organisation.  I suspect no one in Ireland was aware of how much of a problem this was.  In the late 1980s, the most active organisation in the federation was Una Voce Canada.  UV Canada was eventually expelled from the Federation, when its president, Jim Scheer was ordained to the permanent diaconate.  However, Fr Pádraig Ó Fithchill was a priest.  Most people suggested he was an Augustinian (he told me he was an Augustinian tertiary, associated with the Order's Canadian province and also that he did novitiate in Clare Priory in England.  Clare Priory was only used as a novitiate for two years, but it was plausible that he was there given his age.) 

However, he was a priest of the Birmingham Archdiocese.  It's interesting that many people suspended the normal question about a priest using the Irish version of his name: what's his name in English?  I have to say I only guessed when someone put the question to me in a very loaded manner.  His name was Patrick Fell.  You can read about his conviction and time in prison in the link.  I have to say I have strong reasons to believe that this was another miscarriage of justice and I don't believe he was O.C. of a Provisional IRA active service unit.  That's beside the point.  Much later I was faced with a situation I was desperately looking for priests to offer the EF Mass and I knew Father Ó Fithchill was happy to do so, but I also knew to use him would cause me more trouble.  The matter of the organisation's affiliation with the FIUV did not hinge on Father Ó Fithchill's priesthood alone: the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales were well aware of Father Ó Fithchill's background.  For that reason, they were very wary of having any connexion with the new Irish body.  

But at the AGM of Ecclesia Dei Ireland in 1994, a proposal was made to change the constitution to enable the body affiliate with the FIUV.  Though this was not personalised, the motion was voted down.  For some attendants, the matter was simple.  In many parts of Ireland at that stage, priests played an active role in community life even outside pastoral life.  For example, it was not unusual to find a parish priest chairing the local Gaelic Athletic Association club in many rural parishes.  So many people found it perplexing that a priest could or should be excluded from an executive role in a specifically religious body like the LMSI/EDI.  One speaker said very clearly that if the FIUV had a problem with EDI being chaired by a priest, then the problem lay with them.  So the motion was defeated.

In the event, Father Ó Fithchill resigned as Honorary President of the society, a role he was given when he resigned as chairman two years earlier.