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Fáilte, Welcome

to the website for the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, Ireland

Bishop William Crean

04 October 2025

Bishop William Crean meets Pope Leo on recent pilgrimage to Rome

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Bishop Crean meets Pope Leo

Pastoral letter from Bishop William Crean

on pastoral planning for the future

My dear people,

To live is to change, is a pearl of wisdom from St. John Henry Newman, a convert to the Catholic faith in the 19th Century. To live in the 21st Century is an experience of constant change, social, cultural and technological. Viewing “Reeling in the Years,” the television series depicting life in former times is a dramatic reminder of the extent of the change we have experienced.

The Church whose life and presence within our communities and parish has had to adjust to and
manage the change taking place in society. One particular pattern has been evident for some years
now is the decline both in profession of Christian faith and its practice through the attendance at Holy Mass,
which, for the believer, is an obligation in faith. The consequence of this generational shift from family and
parish community attendance has seen a similar decline in responding to the call to Priesthood and Religious life. Despite this pattern in the Diocese of Cloyne, in all the parishes there are faithful practicing prayer congregations who witness to and support one another in faith.

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14 Oct 2025 - A Journey of Faith and Participation

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October 2025
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September 2025
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October 2024
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Coram Fratribus

Desert Fathers 42

You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
Isaac the Theban went to Read More

Coram Fratribus

A Conversation in Lisbon

My book Chastity was recently published in a fine Portuguese version.
I was fortunate on that occasion to engage in a conversation with my translator, Joana Viana Lopes, and a group of young people at the Catholic University in Lisbon, being on Read More

Coram Fratribus

28. Sunday C

2 Kings 5:14-17: Now, please, accept a present from your servant.
2 Timothy 2:8-13: He is always faithful, for he cannot disown his own self.
Luke 17:11-19: One of them turned back praising God.
Our readings invite us to reflect on the Read More

Coram Fratribus

St Teresa Teresa is a witness to the beautiful dimension of faith. When she speaks of it, she is categorical: ‘The fact of seeing Christ left an impression of his exceeding beauty etched on my soul to this day: once was enough’. This beauty is disturbing, even dangerous. To behold it is to be struck down. It is to walk thenceforth, like Jacob out of Jabbok, with a limp. Teresa illustrates what this means when she speaks of her transverberation, when her heart was pierced by an angel with a fiery lance. The moment has acquired emblematic force in the mystical and aesthetic canons of the West. Bernini’s marble account of it still both enchants and shocks, yet is, for all its formal perfection, but an outsider’s limited view. Teresa stresses the exquisite beauty of the angel, an emissary sent from before the burning holiness of God. The impact on her of this beautiful encounter is complex. So physical was the transfixing that her innards seemed to be drawn out when the lance retreated. So spiritual was it that it left her ‘completely afire with a great love of God’. She makes no apology for not defining the ratio of embodied and transcendent experience. Paradox alone can convey what she went through, as she sums up: ‘It is not bodily pain, but spiritual, though the body has a share in it – indeed, a great share.’ Small wonder that for days she was left as in a stupor. From a talk given ten years ago at the Brompton Oratory.

Coram Fratribus

Light-Filled Lamp A wonderful text from St Columbanus’s Instructions in today’s vigils: ‘I am a lowly creature but I am still his servant, and I hope that he will choose to wake me from slumber. I hope that he will set me on fire with the flame of his divine love, the flame that burns above the stars, so that I am filled with desire for his love and his fire burns always within me! I hope that I may deserve this, that my little lamp should burn all night in the temple of the Lord and shine on all who enter the house of God! Lord, I beg you in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son and my God, give me a love that cannot stumble so that my lamp can be lit but can never go out: let it burn in me and give light to others.’
https://coramfratribus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Columbanus.m4a

Coram Fratribus

Desert Fathers 42 You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
Isaac the Theban went to a monastery. There he saw a brother who had fallen. And he judged him. When he went back to the desert, an angel of the Lord came and took up position before the door of his cell, saying: ‘I will not let you enter.’ [Abba Isaac] besought him and said: ‘What is this about?’ The angel answered him and said: ‘God has sent me to you to say: “Ask him: Where do you command that I should cast the fallen brother?” At once Abba Isaac prostrated himself, saying: ‘I have sinned! Forgive me!’ The angel said: ‘Get up. God has forgiven you. But from now on take good care not to judge anyone before God has judged him’.
Before us is an example of cursory judgement. Such are easily made. We see someone in church, at a party, crossing the road; we hear somebody else whisper, ‘There goes such-and-such. Do you know what he did?’
Lapping up the gossip, we are swift to condemn. Condemnation brings a moment’s satisfaction. Inwardly we may make a sigh of relief. To have someone to look down on gives us a satisfying sense of having reached a certain height. We might even spiritualise our reaction and rehearse a formula like that of the man who, long ago, went up to the temple to pray, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector’, quite unaware of how grotesque we have become.
A penchant for judging in this way may remain with us even when we have made some progress in the spiritual life, when our eyes are opened to behold God’s angels. Abba Isaac ascertained this on his way back from a visit paid to an unnamed monastic community. Walking happily home, looking forward to the peace and quiet of his cell, his sanctuary, he might, for all we know, have quite forgotten about the fallen brother. Nothing suggests that he was obsessed with him, or even that he had made some sort of public pronouncement. He had simply seen a man about whom he had heard certain things, in whom a certain degradation was perceptible, or about whom he had suspicions, and had judged him in his heart, thinking: ‘Dear God, another one of those!’ or ‘Why do these weaklings need to bring the side down?’
Then he found his sanctuary closed to him, guarded by an angel like the cherub posted by God east of Eden after Adam’s fall, with a flaming sword turning every way. We have had occasion to notice it already: the angels who appear to the Desert Fathers are straight-talking creatures whose utterance is salted. By putting to Issac a sardonic question, the angel makes the elder see the extent of his presumption. Isaac realises that he had, by judging his brother, usurped a divine prerogative, yielding to Luciferian pride. I am impressed by the indignation God conveys through his emissary. The message is clear: ‘Who do you think you are?’
To Isaac’s credit, he repents forthwith, unconditionally. Jumping off his high horse, he throws himself on the ground and makes an exemplary confession, that is, confession that admits, ‘I have sinned’, without blaming the weather or a headache or distractions or whatever. Isaac is basically humble and kind. His harshness had been a blip, a concession made perhaps unawares to the Old Adam set on blocking the birth in us of the New.
The angel is pleased. When he next speaks, it is with a different tone of voice. ‘The Lord’, we read in a Psalm is ‘merciful and gracious’, ‘he will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger for ever’. This episode bears the Scriptural affirmation out. The angel takes leave by addressing to Isaac a word of exhortation: ‘Do not forget this salutary humiliation’. All our falls, although painful and perhaps hideous in themselves, carry potential to become sources of grace in as much as we learn from them and recommit ourselves to the path of conversion.
The way we look at others can be a precious source of self-knowledge when we learn to attend to it well. If I incline to judge certain people, or categories of people, harshly, it is very possibly because, at some subliminal level, I find myself standing accused: my prompt judgment may well be an act of self-defence by means of attack. It would be well if instead I saw it as an invitation to be healed, forgiven, or reconciled. Dorotheus of Gaza, that wonderful man, tells a story that may help us reflect on our habits and patterns of response to people we encounter:
A fellow happens to be standing at a street-corner at night. I do not say he is a monk; he could be anybody living in the town. Three men pass by. One of them thinks: ‘That man is waiting to go off to do something lecherous!’ The second one thinks: ‘He is a robber!’ The third one thinks: ‘Ah, this man has clearly just called out to his friend from the next house and is waiting for him to come down so that together they may go somewhere and pray!’ Do you see: all three have seen the same man standing in the same place, yet their thoughts about him differ widely.
Dorotheus’s point is that the three observers do not in fact engage with the nocturnal watcher: they project onto him what is in their heart, for ill as well as for good. We shall benefit from examining closely the way in which we evaluate others. Instead of judging them falsely, we may be helped to judge ourselves in truth.

Coram Fratribus

A Conversation in Lisbon My book Chastity was recently published in a fine Portuguese version.
I was fortunate on that occasion to engage in a conversation with my translator, Joana Viana Lopes, and a group of young people at the Catholic University in Lisbon, being on my way to attend the plenary of the CCEE in Fátima.
You can watch the conversation, conducted in Portuguese and English, here.
Is it possible to speak of chastity today? I was asked. It would seem that it is.
You may also want to glance at this interview with Ecclesia.
Photograph: Alexandra Viana Lopes

Coram Fratribus

28. Sunday C 2 Kings 5:14-17: Now, please, accept a present from your servant.
2 Timothy 2:8-13: He is always faithful, for he cannot disown his own self.
Luke 17:11-19: One of them turned back praising God.
Our readings invite us to reflect on the ratio between felt need and expressed gratitude. It is a matter that touches our lives every day; it is intrinsic to any social contract, any community, any family. In the Western world, we tend to materialise need. It is part of the commercialisation of society. We tell ourselves, and are glad to be told, that there’s always something we can buy (or download) to satisfy our every need. We cast ourselves as consumers, which means we think of ourselves as being in charge. The principle holds: ‘The customer is always right.’ It is nice to be always right!
As long as I look to purchase a product, and have the money to pay for it, I wield the might of capital. I can dictate terms. I don’t have to ask for things. I can order them. By indulging this habit, there’s a risk that we come to conceive of life, even of relationships, ever more in terms of transactions – or ‘deals’, as one says these days.
This tendency manifests itself extremely now. But it isn’t new. It is lodged in fallen human nature. Think of Naaman. An official of the king of Syria, he was smitten with leprosy. A Hebrew slave told him about Elisha, a known healer. Naaman lit up. Imagine a chronic sufferer told that nothing can be done for him at home, who then hears of a new cure in Switzerland. Of course he gets on the first plane! Naaman set off with his retinue, laden with precious gifts. He was a man of means, expecting an obsequious welcome and thorough treatment, ready to pay.
Elisha worked on different terms. He wasn’t a merchant. He was a minister of grace. When Naaman arrived, Elisha didn’t even go out to see him. He sent a message, asking Naaman to bathe in the Jordan. Naaman was furious. Couldn’t he have bathed at home?! Only the persistence of his staff made him heed Elisha’s counsel. Which worked. The leprosy left him. That is where our reading picks up the story. Naaman returns to Elisha expecting, as it were, to pay the invoice. ‘Please’, he says, ‘accept a present from your servant.’ Elisha says, ‘No thanks.’ He would have Naaman understand that his healing had been a gift.
The right response to a gift isn’t a cheque. It is thanksgiving. Saying thanks is hard for many. A person’s capacity for gratitude is a pretty infallible index of his or her inner freedom and maturity. The immature are ungrateful. They consider things due to them and kick up a fuss, or sulk, when they don’t get what they want. When they do get it, they simply feel affirmed in the rightness of their expectation.
We know how tedious this attitude is in others. Do we notice it in ourselves? Where do we stand with regard to our own sense of entitlement? The question matters in a welfare society. Norway is famous for its high taxation; also for its affluence and social security. Do I think of myself as a citizen or as a client of society? A citizen has duties; a client makes claims. It is easier to be a client. The model can be transferred onto our sense of Church membership. When it makes inroads there, it can be fatal. It sours relationships, saddens hearts, kills life.
Gratitude, then, is something to be practised. It is an excellent habit to ask at the end of each day: ‘What has happened to me today that I have cause to be grateful for?’ The annoying things that have disappointed, hurt, or frustrated us recall themselves; about them we needn’t worry. The gracious things are more discreet. They need to be called forward, acknowledged, named. When they are, they release a sweetness of joy that may take us by surprise.
English happily allows us to hear (in a way Norwegian doesn’t) the mutual resonance of two key New Testament terms that form the foundation of the Christian life: I think of grace and gratitude. In both Latin and Greek the semantic link between these terms is obvious. If we try, we can verify that link experientially, too. To live by grace, to become gracious, is to learn there are things that can’t be bought, only gratefully received; to learn to say ‘thank you’ is a way of growing in grace. It is a dignified, splendid thing to be able to receive a gift freely; even as it is a dignified, splendid thing freely to give. And what a relief to step outside the consumerist paradigm, into the paradigm of grace!
In today’s Gospel a group of sick people turn to our Lord Jesus Christ for healing. All of them were healed. All were pleased to be healed. But 90% took their healing for granted, simply walking off back into the grey anonymity of ordinary, ungrateful life. One only felt the need to give thanks, filled with jubilation, ‘praising God at the top of his voice’. Such a one shows what it means to live according to the heart of God, where all is grace. Let us, too, be people with the maturity and freedom to give thanks, thereby bringing gracious, joyful warmth into a world that, surrendered to its own devices, easily turns hostile and cold.

Elisha Refusing Naaman’s Gifts by Lambert Jacobsz (ca. 1598 – 1636), in the Leiden Collection. Naaman’s astonishment is well rendered. Never before has his credit card been turned down!

Posted: 4 hours ago

Don't forget to tune into the RTÉ at 11am this Sunday - Mission Sunday - for the televised Mass. 1 Likes

Posted: 5 hours ago

Today we celebrate St Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr.
He died a martyr in Rome c107. He urged Christians to unity in and through the Eucharist and around their local Bishop.
Pray for us St. Ignatius 8 Likes

Posted: 14 hours ago

This Sunday, RTÉ One RTÉ Radio 1Extra and will broadcast World Mission Sunday Mass with a spe....

This Sunday, RTÉ One RTÉ Radio 1Extra and @RTEplayer
will broadcast World Mission Sunday Mass with a special message from Pope Leo XIV. Tune in!

Posted: Yesterday

Next Sunday is Mission Sunday - envelopes will be available in all Parishes and a special collection will be taken up at weekend Masses
www.missio.ie
#missionsunday2025 7 Likes

Posted: Yesterday

Bishop Crean meets Pope Leo

Bishop William Crean meets Pope Leo on recent pilgrimage to Rome

"Behold I'm doing a new thing" says the Lord (Isaiah 43)

Pastoral letter from Bishop William Crean

Recent picture of St. Colman's Cathedral, Cobh. Co. Cork

Light a Candle at St. Colman's Cathedral

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