ARCHBISHOP ELECT TRAVELS TO PAEDOPHILE PRIEST’S FUNERAL

The priest was Fr Colman McGrath.

He taught at Blair’s Junior Seminary

Colman was convicted of abusing boys including 1 who is now a priest of Glasgow.

Colman was allowed to minister in Glasgow after allegations arose.

After being convicted he was given a priests funeral at which Archbishop Tartaglia presided.

Bishop Nolan travelled from his home in Ayr for Colmans funeral even though he’d admitted and been convicted.

Absolutely shocking, told you this was another company man.

You’ll find reference to Bill Nolan’s attendance on The St Mungos Singer Website

PAT SAYS

The Catholic position is that Funeral Masses are not a celebration of the life of the deceased – but rather a Mass to pray for the soul of the deceased for the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation of his soul

So, the worst of sinners and criminals deserve and need a Funeral Mass.

But the funeral of a paedophile should be a discreet and low key affair- certainly not a Mass celebrated by an archbishop with another bishop present.

The fact that Bishop Nolan travelled to another diocese to take part in a paedophile priest’s  funeral was way over the top and smacks of Nolan not having an understanding of the pain of his victims.

But that’s the RC bishops for you.

They continue took after paedophile priest and f*** the victims.

This does not bode well for Nolan’s tenure in Glasgow.

THE NUNCIOS TO THE COURT OF ST JAMES

By Monsignor V

The long overdue appointment of the Archbishop of Glasgow has concentrated my mind on the role of the Nuncio, and in particular the representative of The Holy See to the Court of St James, as the Apostolic Nuncio covering England and Wales and Scotland (but NOT the North of Ireland) is properly known. I have come across each of them to varying degrees from the 1980’s and what a mixed bunch they have been. One thing is for sure, the quality has diminished as the decades have past, and in my opinion have reached an absolute nadir with the present indolent incumbent of Parkside, SW19. A wise priest once opined “no lions in the Hierarchy”, that could be equally said of the papal diplomatic service, where they all seem to be pussycats! 

The first I met was the magnificent Archbishop Bruno Bernard Heim (1973-85), a giant and not a pygmy. He was delightful and the epitome of what an ambassador should be; urbane, sophisticated, handsome, impeccably dressed, exquisite manners and fluent in several languages. He was also a fine cook and artist (specialising in ecclesiastical heraldry – he designed the coats of arms of Popes Saints John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I (soon to be beatified), John Paul II – and a true, if somewhat indiscreet, friend to the people who mattered in the British Establishment, who sought him out. A particular friendship was with the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who regularly made the trip south of the river (unheard of for a senior royal) to dine at his fine table.

More than anything thing else Heim realised that the Church in England to be taken seriously on the national stage had to be governed by Englishmen, of a certain background, education and class, and not the Irish diaspora who had dominated the hierarchy since its restoration. This was not because of anti-Irish sentiment, though he wasn’t terribly complimentary about the appointment of Tom O’Fee to Armagh, “Ireland deserves better”, was his only comment about that, and he used to relate how O’Fee was transfixed with the Throne Room of the Archbishop of Westminster at Archbishop’s House, “Gosh Armagh has nothing like this”, he said,  and like an excited schoolboy became fixated on having his portrait taken sitting in the most elaborate and rather vulgar throne.

Heim saw to it that John Carmel “Jackie” Cardinal Heenan was succeeded George Basil Hume, as English as they come (even though the old fraud had a French mother and so was in fact French!) and most important of all had English names and spoke with a cut-glass upper-class accent. Hume’s brother was also a senior civil servant at the heart of government, this opened many previously closed doors for the Catholic Church. It is widely accepted that it was the Duke of Norfolk (the Premier Duke of the Relam) who lobbied Heim to insist the Vatican appoint Hume, over the superbly able but emotionally capricious Derek Worlock, who thought Westminster was his for the taking. The appointment of Hume was followed by that of the impossibly grand Maurice Couve de Murville, “Couve the Smooth” his priests called him, to Birmingham, again a scion of the upper middle classes, with impeccable British credentials from his time as a public schoolboy at Downside. That gave him the best of starts in life.

In many ways Heim was a snob, and perhaps his own lowly birth – his father was a stationmaster, his mother cook – blinded him to the many flaws in the characters of those he had promoted to the highest levels of the Church. Both Hume and de Murville were disastrous as diocesan bishops, who were disliked by their priests, both suffered from depression and most seriously of all, both had long histories of covering up for clerical sex abusers, Hume most egregiously while Abbot of Ampleforth. It’s worth noting that the cause for the beatification for Basil Hume has been quietly shelved. There are too many skeletons in that particular closet, and senior man who knew him well said that it was a good thing that Hume left the stage when he did, as had he been Archbishop now, he would have been torn to pieces by the media.

Heim was almost certainly gay (though I never heard even a whisper that he went for late night walks on Wimbledon Common, where one is likely to encounter, well certainly not Wombles!) and sought out and enjoyed the company of witty, intelligent, good looking and invariably straight priests. He was particularly obsessed with his private secretary Monsignor Kieran Conry, a priest from the Birmingham diocese. I’m told that Heim became obsessed with the handsome priest and determined to have a mitre put on his head. To his credit Conry refused, time and again, even confessing to his problems with women. Heim persisted and in time (though Heim was long gone by then) Conry got the mitre that he did not seek. and was appointed fourth Bishop of Arundel and Brighton. In 2014 Conry announced his resignation as bishop with immediate effect for having “been unfaithful to [his] promises as a Catholic priest”. He had been photographed by the Media doing the weekly shop with one of the two women he was involved with at that time. Both were married and their husbands were not terribly happy!

To be continued…

TOMORROW’S BLOG