THE new Catholic Bishop of Limerick is Dr Donal Murray (55), the auxiliary Bishop of Dublin and the Hierarchy's leading theologian. He succeeds Bishops Jeremiah Newman, who died lasts April.
Dr Murray will be installed before the end of next month. He will be the first person from outside the diocese to be appointed its bishop for over two centuries.
Dr Murray was born in Dublin, a son of the late Dr Thomas Murray, who was chairman of the ESB from 1960-1975.
He was educated at Blackrock College, and studied for the priesthood at Clonliffe, Maynooth and the Angelicum University in Rome, where he was awarded a doctorate of divinity. He was ordained a priest in May 1966.
In 1969 he became lecturer in moral theology at the Mater Dei Institute and the following year professor of moral theology at Clonliffe College. From 1973-1982 he lectured on catechetics at UCD, adding ethics to his teaching portfolio from 1978-1982.
In 1982 he became the youngest member of the Hierarchy when, at the age of 41, he was appointed auxiliary Bishop of Dublin. In 1987 he was the choice of the majority of Dublin priests to succeed Dr Kevin McNamara as archbishop of Dublin.
However, the then papal nuncio, Dr Gaetano Alibrandi, did not favour him, and in the end the post went to Dr Desmond Connell. He was not helped by a controversy provoked by a claim by the then RTE religious affairs correspondent that Dr Murray was not acceptable to Rome because he permitted "unorthodox" practices such as the use of altar girls.
This claim caused surprise among people who knew Dr Murray as a gifted theologian with mainstream beliefs. However, the controversy, together with the auxiliary bishop's open minded and down to earth manner, did create an erroneous impression that Dr Murray was on the Church's liberal wing.
In recent years Dr Murray has been a paragon of orthodoxy. As the Hierarchy's leading moral theologian, he has had a large input into recent key church documents such as the Hierarchy's statement before the divorce referendum and last month's presentation to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation.
His willingness to defend the church's positions in public will have endeared him to Cardinal Daly and the Vatican. However, his sometimes brusque defensiveness at the Forum when questioned about inter church marriage and the desirability of making the Constitution reflective of a more secular and pluralist Irish society has been criticised.
Dr Murray is a prolific writer on religious issues. He is the author of three books, Jesus Is Lord (1973), an introduction to Christian theology; The Inner Truth (1977), a collection of essays on the relevance of Christ in the secularised world; and Secularism in the New Europe (1990). He has written numerous booklets on themes such as penance, morality, youth in the church, medical ethics, education, and the church in the modern world.
He is a member of the Vatican's Council for Culture, responsible for dialogue with non believers.
At a press conference in Limerick on Saturday following the announcement of his appointment, Dr Murray said that in recent years bishops, more than many people, had come under "all sorts, of demands and pressures. One has to fight to make space for pastoral contact."
He said there was a huge challenge ahead for the Catholic Church, but he hoped it would be recognised that none of the problems could be solved by a bishop alone. He asked that different religious approaches should not be regarded as divisive.