Welcome, Fáilte - Diocese of Cloyne

Light a Candle at St Colman's from 1 Dec 2024

Light a candle at St Colman's

Welcome

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

Watch this short video clip

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

Search

Latest Homily

18 Jan 2026 - A Light to the nations ...

Latest Articles

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

A Pierced Heart

On Saturday 31 January the religious of Trondheim met to mark the annual Day of Consecrated Life, which we normally keep on the Saturday nearest to Candlemas.
Malachi 3.1-4: Who will stand when he appears?
Luke 2.22-40: A sword will pierce your Read More

Coram Fratribus

Sense in Chastity?

During the launch of Chastity in Polish before Christmas (in a fine translation by Renata Senktas), I was interviewed by Tomasz Samołyk, an important voice in Polish Catholicism. Tomasz was keen to know why I had written the book, whom I had Read More

Coram Fratribus

Behind the Door This afternoon I got a phone call from a young man making a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Bernadette at Nevers. It made me revisit some pages of a book I read last year, indicated here: ‘When others praised or flattered Bernadette, she simply said, ‘Oh, it might just as well have been someone else’. And that was that. As a result it was liberating to be in her presence. She peacefully embraced her own limitations. She had poor health, walked with a stick already as a young woman. This bothered her not at all. She saw it as part of her calling. ‘What do you do with a broom’, she once asked a sister, ‘when you have finished sweeping the floor?’ The sister answered, ‘I put it behind the door.’ Bernadette exclaimed, ‘Exactly! The blessed Virgin used me as a broom. When she no longer had use for me, she put me in my place, behind the door. Here I am. And here I shall remain.’ A hidden life can represent an essential task.’

Coram Fratribus

A Pierced Heart On Saturday 31 January the religious of Trondheim met to mark the annual Day of Consecrated Life, which we normally keep on the Saturday nearest to Candlemas.
Malachi 3.1-4: Who will stand when he appears?
Luke 2.22-40: A sword will pierce your own heart.
In the Blessed Virgin Mary the Church sees an image of herself. Mary’s call was unique, prepared by an exceptional grace. No one will ever again do what she did: bear the Uncreated into the world, be a concrete, living tabernacle for God’s substantial glory.
Yet the incarnation carries on. There is wonderful truth in what we sing about in many a Christmas carol: through the Church the Lord is born in our lives, he establishes his dwelling in us. All of us can say, seriously and realistically, what Paul says: ‘Christ lives in me’, as long as we do not drive him away by sin. In the Eucharist we receive Jesus in Body and Soul.
That is why each aspect of the Virgin Mary’s life has relevance for each and every one of us. The course she staked out is one we must follow faithfully as best we can.
How, then, are we to understand what Simeon, in today’s Gospel, tells Mary: ‘Your heart will be pierced by a sword’?
In the language of the Bible the heart is more than an engine pumping blood. The heart is first referred to in the sixth chapter of Genesis, when human evil is spreading upon earth. God saw that ‘every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’. As a result, he was sorry he had made man ‘and it grieved him to his heart’ (Genesis 6.5-6).
A connection is made here which it is vital to notice.
What we think of as our ‘heart’ corresponds to a reality in God himself. So intimate is the relationship between us and him that it pulls at heart strings. By bad choices and evil deeds we can cause his heart pain.
God is beyond any conditioning. Theology would say he is ‘impassible’. He cannot be hurt by anything or anyone. Yet because he loved the human being so, he exposed himself to us. We in our turn, made in his image, our vulnerably exposed.
To come close to God, Simeon tells Mary, is to hurt at times. That is how it must be, simply because God’s light and truth touches depths in us that are infinitely susceptible. To the degree that we learn to live by grace, to the degree that the life of Jesus flourishes in us, our inner senses will be sharpened: we shall see, hear, feel, perceive, yes, even smell with new intensity. Such ability is risky in a coarse, often brutal world.
Simeon tells Mary, and us, that Christian maturing is maturing in vulnerability. We use a lot of time and energy to arm ourselves against hurt, and that may be necessary. But when it comes to the life of grace and prayer, disarmament is what is required. Then we are called to stand bare.
Mary’s courage to let herself be pierced by the sword of God’s love and truth is clearly apparent in the Gospel. By saying Yes! to the life in God in her, she said No! once for all to selfishness and murmuring and stupid navel-gazing. When Jesus’s preaching set him at risk, she experienced with intensity the painful growth all parents must live through as they realise; ‘I cannot protect my child against death.’ She had to learn to give her Son back to his Heavenly Father. She accomplished that committal on Golgotha in silent, noble compassion. Thereby her heart was opened and broadened to receive an explosion of jubilant light at Easter.
As consecrated women and men we are especially called to a Marian existence. Let us give thanks for the boundless, undeserved gift of our call. Let us renew our Yes! to God’s purpose for us here in this place, in this beloved Trondheim, where we have been placed to give the kingdom of God a foothold. To say yes is to be pierced by a sword now and again; for the kingdom of God is still seized with power, it’s no child’s play. But the battle is won, the victory is sure. We can therefore proceed fearlessly, in peace even when storm winds howl round about, having the Virgin Mary as our leader and guide. So to do will be the best, most consoling, most authoritative testimony we can possible give an anxious time.
Amen.
The Presentation in the Temple by Mantegna.

Coram Fratribus

Sense in Chastity? During the launch of Chastity in Polish before Christmas (in a fine translation by Renata Senktas), I was interviewed by Tomasz Samołyk, an important voice in Polish Catholicism. Tomasz was keen to know why I had written the book, whom I had written it for, what I had learnt from it. You can listen to our conversation here.
To tie chastity down, as has been done, to mere mortification of the senses is to make of it a tool to sabotage the flourishing of character. It is also to misunderstand, misrepresent and misapply the meaning of a complex notion. I hope, in this book, to release ‘chastity’ from imprisonment in too narrow categories, allowing it to stretch, extend its limbs, breathe freely, perhaps even sing. I use these images advisedly. Unless chastity has a degree of full-bloodedness, it is not the real thing, but counterfeit. I shall proceed partly by analysis, partly by examples. If I seem to cast my net disconcertingly wide, bear with me. It is as it must be, for we are, I hope you will come to agree, entering a field the length and breadth of which reach far, very far.
From the Introduction to the book.

Coram Fratribus

Herring In Norway, Christmas is herring season. Christmas, as we know, lasts until 2 February. One has time to eat a lot of herring. So I valued as topical the review of Graeme Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring in the TLS. Most informative. The poor herring was long associated with Lenten penance. A sixteenth-century poem ends a description of Ash Wednesday by bemoaning the profusion of ‘Herrings, herrings, stincking herrings’. Could this be the deeper cause of the Reformation? ‘In 18th-century Cork, to mark the end of Lent, a flayed herring would be tied to a stake and processed through the streets, where crowds would whip it out of town.’ Och, the Irish. One would rather recall Alexandre Dumas, who with Gallic perspicuity defined the herring ‘an excellent fish’ – or the sworn herringist Sir Lawrence Olivier who reportedly considered his (successful) campaign to have kippers reinstated on British Rail’s menu for the Brighton Belle train his ‘greatest role’. You can read the whole piece, and be greatly instructed, here.

Coram Fratribus

Trivialities In today’s office of readings the breviary gives a passage from St Basil’s Rules. It meditates on God’s immense graciousness, then concludes with the words: ‘To confess my personal feelings, when I reflect on all these blessings I am overcome by a kind of dread and numbness at the very possibility of ceasing to love God and of bringing shame upon Christ because of my lack of recollection and my preoccupation with trivialities.’ The point is an important one. Trivialities are not always trivial. The more we focus on them, the more they become weighty; indeed they may weigh our existence down entirely, like an anchor caught in some sad wreckage at the bottom of the sea. The more we get used to losing ourselves in small things, the less we incline towards what is great. And love can die. From which fate may the Lord preserve us. We can help him in this by resuming, without delay, a conscious practice of recollection.

As our young people in 3rd and 6th year are beginning to sit their Pre Junior and Leaving Cert exams this week - we would like to share this lovely prayer and wish them every luck. Read More 6 Likes

Posted: 8 hours ago

Today 2nd February we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord - Candlemas.
Today people throughout the Diocese will bring candles to be blessed at Mass.
Today is also the World Day for Consecrated Life. It is a Read More 20 Likes

Posted: 10 hours ago

Photos from Cloyne Diocese's post Today, Sunday 1st February we celebrate the Feast of Saint Brigid, Abbess and Secondary Patron of Ireland.
She shares a name with a Celtic goddess from whom many legends and folk customs are associated.
She founded the first nunnery in Ireland, Read More 1 Comments

19 Likes

Posted: Yesterday

Ahead of the Feast of St Brigid, tomorrow we share with you, her blessing for your home.
May Brigid bless this house
Wherein we dwell,
Bless every fireside, every wall and door,
Bless every heart that beats beneath its roof,
Bless Read More 1 Comments

Amen🙏🙏

24 Likes

Posted: Yesterday

Feast of St. John Bosco
Today we celebrate the feast of St. John Bosco and who was Founder of the Salesians and Patron Saint of Youth.
Let us pray today for all the young people in our Diocese. 15 Likes

Posted: 2 days ago

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

Search

Latest Homily

Latest Articles