BISHOP ELECT of Killaloe Fr Kieran O’Reilly said yesterday that it was “huge, almost trauma” to be asked to leave his senior missionary post and become the new bishop of Killaloe.
One month after being asked by the Congregation of Bishops in Rome on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI to take up the post, the 57-year-old Cork native admitted yesterday that he was “still probably in a bit of shock” over the appointment and the task he now faced.
At his first press briefing in Ennis as bishop elect, Fr O’Reilly said he was halfway through his second term as superior general of the Society of African Missions (SMA), which has more than 800 priests in 30 countries, when he was asked to move.
Fr O’Reilly admitted that the last 10 to 15 years had been “a dark time” for the church in Ireland.
He continued: “Not least, I suppose, is the harrowing accounts that we have had in the reports that have come out in recent times.”
With outgoing Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, by his side, Fr O’Reilly said: “The Murphy and Ryan reports have shaken us to the very roots we are at.”
He added, however: “I am not a person of false optimism, but I am a person of hope and there is a hope in rebuilding an identity of church that will be very special and uniquely our way of doing it in Ireland . . .”
Dr Walsh said: “I think Kieran brings very special qualities which are appropriate at this time. We are all aware of the fact over the past 10 to 15 years that there has been a dark cloud constantly across the Irish church in relation to the tragedy of sexual abuse.
“I hope and I pray that we have now structures in place which will never, as far as humanly possible, allow that to happen again. I do think it is a time for new life and new growth in the Irish church.”
Fr O’Reilly will be ordained Bishop of Killaloe at a ceremony in Ennis on Sunday, August 29th, next.
