A new Catholic bishop for Glendalough will be consecrated by Pope John Paul II next month.
The Vatican has announced that Mgr Diarmuid Martin, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will be consecrated along with other bishops on January 6th.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, said he deeply appreciated the appointment of "this distinguished priest of the diocese to the episcopate."
Born in Dublin in 1945, Mgr Martin was educated at the Oblate School in Inchicore, the De la Salle School, Ballyfermot, and Marian College in Ballsbridge. He studied for the priesthood at Holy Cross College, Clonliffe, and was ordained on May 25th, 1969.
Speaking to The Irish Times from his Rome apartment last night, Mgr Martin said: "Frankly, I was surprised by this appointment because at 53, by Vatican standards, I am still young to be made a Bishop and I had no pretensions in that direction." Mgr Martin confirmed he had chosen the Titular seat of Glendalough both because it comes within the Dublin diocese and because of its obvious importance both in Irish history and in the history of the early Irish Church.
He has taken part in Holy See delegations to the Rio de Janeiro Conference on the Environment and Development in 1992, to the UN Cairo Conference on Population and Development in 1994, to the UN Beijing Conference on Women in 1995 and has participated at various levels of the UN Economic and Social Commission. He also sponsored meetings between the World Bank and the IMF and the Council for Latin American Bishops' conferences on international debt.
Mgr Martin is a brother of The Irish Times electronic publishing editor and former Moscow correspondent, Seamus Martin.