Rebel priest who defied bishop’s authority laid to rest

A REBEL cleric who openly defied a bishop’s authority was buried yesterday.

Fr Tim O’Donovan died on Friday in the care of the sisters and staff of St Paul’s Nursing Home in Bushmount, Clonakilty, in west Cork. He was 92.

Bishop of Cork and Ross Dr John Buckley described him during his funeral Mass in St Michael’s Church in Rathbarry as a holy priest who was very aware of the purpose of his priesthood.

“He served the people well in the different parishes where he ministered,” he said. “He was extremely proud of his diocese and found it difficult to accept decisions that were made regarding its future.

“Like Saint Paul, who differed with Saint Peter, Fr Tim did not hesitate to challenge the authorities of that time,” but he said the difficulties were resolved in a friendly way.

Fr O’Donovan, who was parish priest of Rath and the Islands in the late ’80s, grabbed national attention when he openly refused to acknowledge the authority of the late Bishop Michael Murphy over Ross. He refused to acknowledge the diocesan authorities, because he did not recognise the merger of the Cork and Ross diocese in 1958.

Bishop Murphy sacked him from his ministry on October 10, 1987. It sparked a bitter row which split the parish for a decade.

In the days after Fr O’Donovan’s sacking, more than 100 of his supporters locked the doors of the Church of the Sacred Heart at Rath, near Baltimore, for almost two weeks. They successfully prevented his replacement Fr Owen Cashman, who has since died, from entering the church.

Bishop Murphy later pleaded with Fr O’Donovan from the altar of the Pro-Cathedral in Skibbereen to end the row.

Despite a statement from the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Gaetano Alibrandi, which confirmed that His Holiness Pope Paul V1 had on April 1, 1976, named Bishop Murphy as coadjutor bishop with rights of succession to the Diocese of Cork and Ross, Fr O’Donovan remained defiant. The stand-off ended in the High Court later that month when Bishop Murphy sought an injunction against Fr O’Donovan to restrain him from holding himself out to be the parish priest of Rath and the Islands.

Fr O’Donovan went on the celebrate Mass in a number of local homes.

Bishop Murphy’s successor Bishop Buckley moved to heal the rift in 1998 when Fr O’Donovan was 83, reinstating him to the ministry and clearing the way for him to celebrate the sacraments as a retired priest.