A Bishop of the people

Bishop John Buckley couldn’t live in the Bishop’s Palace. He would feel cut off, he tells Claire O’Sullivan

BISHOP John Buckley doesn’t actually live at the Bishop’s Palace on Redemption Road in Cork’s northside.

The palace, officially the headquarters of the Cork and Ross diocese, is the equivalent of the ‘office’ to him. Instead, home is a modest house, tucked behind Christ King Church in Turner’s Cross, just a stone’s throw from Cork City’s soccer grounds and about six kilometres across the city on the southside.

The palace, to the north of Neptune Basketball stadium and the North Cathedral, is certainly old school. Imposing classical portraits of his predecessors, Bishop Cornelius Lucey and Bishop Michael Murphy peer down at us as we talk in the dining room, a curious mix of boardroom, living-room and clerical drawing-room. Stacked up on the table are that day’s avalanche of as-of-yet unopened Christmas cards. The bishop tells me he replies to all.

Austere, spotlessly clean yet tropically warm, the palace is the type of place where footsteps echo from one end of the building to the other and where a ticking clock reverberates throughout.

The bishop couldn’t countenance living here. He would feel isolated, cut off. “I think I’d feel lonely here at night time,” he says, looking half shocked at the prospect. “I’d find it too big.”

Bishop Buckley doesn’t encourage isolation, for himself or for anyone else. There is much to be gained from participation, involvement, community, interaction with people, he says. Much, that he believes, we have lost and which could help us better cope with the throes of this recession.

“The trauma and devastation that it causes, it’s very sad. It’s so important to have a strong sense of self-worth. I always feel so much is got from involvement in sporting organisations and sporting representations,” he says.

In the past, he believes there was “a more supportive culture”, that people had more time and inclination to look out for those around them. “Companionship is vital,” he says. “The lack of extended family around people, the sad decrease in personal intercommunications because of the increase of technology. It all has an impact,” he says. “In the words of Chesterton: ‘Two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.’”

Bishop Buckley is far from introvert himself. A renowned fan of road bowling, he likes nothing better than to spend his weekend mornings with a bunch of countrymen walking the labyrinthine country roads skirting Cork City. Originally from Inchigeela in Co Cork, he is also a hurling nut, who promised that he would personally invite Pope Benedict to Cork if the Cork hurling team won the All-Ireland championship in 2006 for the third consecutive time. The Cork team failed to rise to that particular challenge.

He is also widely seen as an ‘out and about’ bishop. When our conversation veers to the issue of women priests, he resolutely toes the Vatican line on the matter but tells me he has ensured women operate at the top echelons of the diocesan hierarchy. He also points out how he always makes a point of attending the Cork women’s mini-marathon each year and dropping into Little Christmas celebrations around the city on Jan 6.

“It’s not a question of not being willing, it’s a question of not being able. Women should be involved in the Church. I believe very strongly in that and so we have a woman child protection officer, education officer and two secretaries,” he said.

Many younger women must smile when they see the bishop arrive in his cassock at the mini-marathon etc. For a great number, the Church is essentially irrelevant to their daily lives, maybe just somewhere to marry and baptise your children but not somewhere that they seek spiritual respite on a daily or weekly basis.

“Irish people have a religious instinct. I believe that firmly. People retain that instinct even though they are not regular Mass goers,” he says. He doesn’t despair of the a la carte habits of many of the young Irish, arriving at the Church on Christmas Day and on Easter Sunday at a push.

“They may not attend regularly but they still retain their affiliations. You will see them at funerals, at communions even though they may have grown casual or careless,” he says.

In time of recession, the bishop believes the Church has more to offer than ever, that faith can heal.

“In the words of Dr Michael Kelleher, who set up the National Suicide Research Foundation, religious faith gives people a purpose in life.”

Bishop Buckley is certainly man with a quote for every occasion. He also nods to St Therese of Lisieux’s famous quote around the difficulties of dealing with acute pain, ‘What a grace it is to have faith. If I had not any faith, I would have committed suicide without an instant’s hesitation’.

But the Church haven’t been very good at marketing themselves, I suggest? Bishop Buckley won’t agree with this statement, pointing instead to the inherent hope contained in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

“For all the talk of Mass attendance falling, if the church was a political party, it would form a one-party government with an overwhelming majority in this country. Jesus Christ is a message of hope, a message of joy, we must share it. As Pope Benedict said ‘many people now think the Church is a collection of prohibitions, but it is not. It’s positive, it’s totally different.”

But what about its virulent opposition to female priests, its desperate clinging to the celibacy rule for priests, to cohabitation, to sex before marriage, to contraception and that’s without mentioning its greatest rallying cry of all, blanket denunciation of abortion under any condition? Surely such stances seem entirely divorced from the everyday realities of the life a Irish man or woman in their 20s, 30s, 40s? “These are all ideals that we must try to live up to. If you do not meet all these ideals, it does not mean that you cannot take your place at the table the Lord has prepared for you. The Church is a refuge for the weak, not a home for the perfect. I welcome all to the Church and I would encourage everyone to welcome all. I will hear no condemnation or rejection of people. Jesus loves his people no less in their absence,” he said.

The bishop paid a trip to the Irish College in Rome recently. He was bowled over at the backgrounds of the seminarians. There was a doctor, two pharmacists, a masters graduate from the Smurfit School of Business and a former professional football player, he smiles.

“The football player had played with Roy Keane? Can you believe that? He was with United. He rose to the very top. And the Smurfit School graduate? Why did they give up? They all wanted something more, they told me. In the words of Brendan Kenneally, ‘self knows that self is not enough’”.

And so once more, we return to the bishop’s theme of isolation versus participation and so I ask if he believes that priests should be allowed marry? That surely a priest has more to bring to his flock if he has experience of marriage, of parenthood?

“Rome is reflecting on all the options. All the various religions, they’re all short of vocations, not just the Catholic Church. Even religions where celibacy is not a rule are having difficulties finding people for the priesthood. I don’t believe that celibacy is a major cause in the decline in vocations, there is a lack of encouragement out there in the community to become a priest”.

In the wake of the child sex abuse scandal that rocked the Irish Church in recent years, Rome has taken a particular interest in the Irish Church. Earlier this year the report of the Apostolic Visitation whereby a team of leading clerics came to examine the state of the Irish Church, was published. Aside from calling for a more cloistered formation of seminarians and expressing fears about a “certain tendency” towards holding opinions at variance with the Church’s teachings, the visiting teams also expressed opinions on the need to restructure the diocesan structure in Ireland, possibly reducing numbers by up to half.

Bishop John Buckley doesn’t agree with such amalgamations.

“I would rather see a re-drawing of the boundaries rather than an amalgamation ie, the Co Cork town of Macroom is in Cloyne, Blarney is also in Cloyne. There is an argument for having these in Cork and Ross. Amalgamation is a blunt instrument. I’d rather see a redrawing of boundaries.”

For all the Pope’s utterances over the past year, it is possibly his recent writings on the Nativity scene that have garnered the most emotive reaction from ordinary Catholics. In his latest book, Benedict wrote ‘In the gospels there is no mention of animals [in the traditional nativity scene],’ dismissing them as a Hebrew invention from the 7th century BC, as outlined in the Book of Habakkuk.

Neither, he said, did angels sing to the shepherd to proclaim Christ’s birth. They just spoke.

Where does the bishop stand on this? I ask as playing the back-end of the donkey or donning a sheep’s costume is a rite of passage for many who don’t make the leading roles in the school Nativity play.

He smiles.

“I’ve wondered about it and I’ve wondered was it tongue in cheek? The animals are part of the crib as we know it.

“I think we’ll continue on with the crib as we know it,” he says.