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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.

Pastoral Letter

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Latest Homily

11 Jan 2026 - Baptism - a sacrament?

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October 2025
- Bishop Crean meets Pope Leo
September 2025
- "Behold I'm doing a new thing" says the Lord (Isaiah 43)
February 2025
- Recent picture of St. Colman's Cathedral, Cobh. Co. Cork
October 2024
- Light a Candle at St. Colman's Cathedral

Coram Fratribus

Epiphany

The protagonists of today’s feast are the wise men from the East and the Child in the manger. Their encounter has been so amply developed in poetry and art that it seems to us deeply familiar. The Magi’s oriental majesty, Read More

Coram Fratribus

Correspondence Dipping into the Journal of Alexander Schmemann, I am struck by an entry dated 2 April 1976, struck and somehow heartened by the resonance.
Schmemann writes about an experience we can all relate to: ‘Letters from Andronikoff, from Vania Morozov, from a reader of Cabasilas. Why am I totally unable to answer letters as they arrive, and why do I have to wait until they pile up in order to invest, despairingly, a whole day in doing so? Surely because each missive requires that one surrenders a portion of one’s heart to it, and we are sparing in this respect.’
The same entry reflects on the impossibility of reducing ‘faith’ to ‘religion’ or to ‘ideology’. ‘Religion and ideology subjugate us. Only faith liberates.’

Coram Fratribus

Heridas que sanan Healing Wounds was recently launched in Spanish, in a fine version done by Carlos Ezcurra (who translated the English text) and Armando Pego (who translated Arnulf of Leuven’s poem). Professor Pego has reflected on his conversation with the poem here. The launch was noted in various media: El Debate, Omnes, InfoVaticana, and others. After the launch I had the opportunity to visit the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales. I was fascinated to find there this mural, which corresponds exactly to the type of the Crucified Monk I discuss in the book: ‘Our wounds will finally heal when they have become so one with Christ’s, so fully surrendered, that we no longer know where his passion ends and ours begins. We are caught up, then, in the inexorable victory of his life over our death, of his light over our darkness, of his wholeness over our fragmentation.’

Coram Fratribus

Intermission Coram Fratribus will take an Epiphanytide break. I thank you for your companionship through the site. May 2026 be blessed for you, truly an annus Domini. A good thing to read this season is Nathaniel Peter’s essay on Christmas joy, which also takes you to some wonderful music. Nathaniel cites Pieper: ‘For man cannot have the experience of receiving what is loved, unless the world and existence as a whole represent something good and therefore beloved to him.’ There is a task for all of us in that observation. Below you can hear the Carmelites of Tromsø sing a wonderful carol. ‘Sic nos Amantem, quis non redamaret?’
Happy new year!
+fr Erik Varden
https://coramfratribus.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/01-A-kom-alle-kristne.mp3

Coram Fratribus

Epiphany The protagonists of today’s feast are the wise men from the East and the Child in the manger. Their encounter has been so amply developed in poetry and art that it seems to us deeply familiar. The Magi’s oriental majesty, their splendid capes and headgear and precious gifts, lend extravagance to Christmas. We are right to rejoice in all this loveliness. God has assumed our nature. He takes it seriously, also in its sensuous and imaginative aspects. Everything kan become praise.
The scene from Bethlehem fulfils the vision of Isaiah: ‘The nations come to your light and kings to your dawning brightness.’ This promise is realised before our eyes. It is wonderful: God prepares our salvation by means of a scenography conceived in minute detail so as to give us reliable signs by which we may ascertain its accomplishment. Now the hour has come.
We rejoice in the radiance that issues from the manger. Full daylight, however, is more than we can bear. John says it categorically: ‘The light came into the world, but men preferred darkness to the light.’ That remains the case to this day. Through the gentleness and sweetness of Christmas blows a cold wind of rejection.
God knew it would be like this. The same Isaiah who prophesied Christ’s epiphany foresaw all that the Lord’s Suffering Servant would have to endure to enact his mission: ‘He was rejected, despised by people, a man of sorrows; one before whom people hide their faces, despised. And we counted him for nothing.’ The Child in the Manger is the Lamb of God. Above the stable roof we see the outline of a Cross.
It is a noble tradition that the Church, on this thirteenth day of Christmas, proclaims the date of Easter. We are reminded that God became man, not to create an atmosphere, but to engage, on our behalf, in battle against sin and death. We know what it cost him. Let’s be mindful of that when we kneel, alongside Melchior, Balthasar and Casper, before Mary’s Child. In the gifts offered by the three, the Church recognises mystical signs of Jesus’s passion and death.
In a hymn by Thomas Kingo we sing of ‘Joy and grief proceeding hand in hand‘. In the face of Jesus the two are one. We are reminded that life is like this. We needn’t fear the admixture. We needn’t rebel against it. What matters is to know that all has been born by our loving Saviour in order, next, to assume our part in his bearing, each of us according to our own special call.
The dawn Isaiah foresaw points towards the day. Let us choose what is of the day, putting behind us all that belongs to the night. God, who is Light, has come to make us light. That, too, is part of what Isaiah saw.
After worshipping the Son of God, the Magi returned to their homeland ‘by another way’. Their choice was pragmatically motivated: the angel had warned them of Herod’s plots. However, there is also deep symbolic truth in their new itinerary. An encounter with Jesus is transformative. One isn’t the same afterwards; it no long seems right to keep on walking the way one walked before. We yearn for something else on which we may struggle to put our finger.
To be a Christian is to live in this state of otherness, constantly looking for the right way. The Way, of course, has a name, a face. It reveals itself to us to us on Mary’s lap and here on this altar. Let us follow the Way with joy, faithfully, grateful for the fellowship we have in one another.
Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi.

Coram Fratribus

In Conversation During Christmastide we meditate on the fact that the Word has become flesh. It is a good time to think about what words are. Bishop Daniel Flores helps us to do this, and to think about translating words, in a recent lecture. He envisages the incarnation as the Eternal Word’s self-translation. ‘The clarity of the sign that is Christ’s flesh is at the same time inherently enigmatic. This is so not because he could be more explicicitly present to us, but because humans can only perceive direct presence through the senses. We see who someone is and what they are about through how they present themselves to us. The Incarnation is thus an invitation to see through the expressive manifestation and rightly interpret the truth shown us through his flesh. There is no getting around this need for true interpretation of Christ; nor should we hope there were. This is the human way.’ You can read the full text here.

𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐲 📝
The Annual Cloyne Lourdes mass celebrating the Feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick will take place in the 𝐂𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 in 𝐊𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐤 on 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐅𝐞𝐛. Read More 3 Likes

Posted: 5 days ago

3 Likes

Posted: Last week

Monsignor James O’Donnell, Macroom to Celebrate Platinum Jubilee in Castlelyons
Castlelyons Community Council, together with Fr. Coleman, has extended a warm invitation to Monsignor James O’Donnell to return to his home parish for a very special occasion. Monsignor O’Donnell will Concelebrate Read More 6 Likes

Posted: Last week

Special Day of Prayer in Midleton - 10th January 2026
Midleton parish invites parishioners from all parishes of the Deanery to participate in
a Special Day of Prayer in Holy Rosary Church, Midleton, on Saturday January
10th 2026, to mark the closing of Read More 16 Likes

Posted: Last week

Today we celebrate the solemnity of The Epiphany of our Lord. 6th January 2026
👑 Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord 👑
The visit of the Wise men from the East to the stable in Bethlehem to visit the Christ Child Read More 4 Comments

Amen 🙏

37 Likes

Posted: Last week

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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