The Bishop of Galway, Dr James McLoughlin, has criticised the media for keeping his predecessor, Bishop Eamonn Casey, out of Ireland.
Dr McLoughlin, who is due to retire shortly and is currently in hospital, was responding to a confirmation from the Catholic Press Office that Bishop Casey would not be attending a Mass in Galway this weekend to mark the 25th anniversary of the Pope's visit there.
Earlier this week the deputy mayor of Galway, Cllr Pádraig Conneely, said Bishop Casey should be invited to the event as he had been very involved in hosting the Pope's visit.
Bishop McLoughlin told Galway Bay FM radio yesterday that he had made contact with Bishop Casey, and had spoken to him three weeks ago in Galway cathedral on his last visit back to the city.
"He [Bishop Casey] said that he knows that he is always welcome in Galway," Dr McLoughlin said.
"However, he has commitments over in his pastoral work that he is doing in England at the moment. And while he knows that the event is on in Galway next Sunday, he won't be able to come to it because of these commitments, but he said that he would keep us all in his prayers.
"The idea that the bishops are keeping Bishop Casey out of Ireland is the greatest rubbish because the man is coming and going," Dr McLoughlin continued.
"Quite honestly, it is the press that are keeping him out - the media".
Bishop McLouglin said that press speculation about a possible attendance at the 25th anniversary Mass by Bishop Casey was a distraction. The Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto will be among the attendance at Ballybrit.
Patsy McGarry writes: Bishop Casey's contract with the American missionary Society of St James the Apostle in Ecuador ended in summer 1998.
It was known at the time that while resigned to whatever would be, he wished to retire to Ireland. He was said to have been homesick for years.
However, opposition from some senior Irish bishops at the time meant he could not live in Ireland. It is understood they were concerned that Bishop Casey would become a focus for endless media attention regardless of where he was to base himself in Ireland.
Attempts were made then to secure Bishop Casey a position in the diocese of Westminster in London.
He had worked there for Irish immigrants and other people in the 1960s through the housing agency, Shelter, which he had founded.
However, it is understood this was opposed by the then Archbishop of that diocese, Cardinal Basil Hume. Bishop Casey was finally offered a position in the south of England diocese of Arundel and Brighton.
Bishop Casey has been working in a parish in that diocese since, and returns to Ireland regularly.
A TG4 survey in 2002 found that more than three-quarters of people in Galway believed Bishop Casey should be allowed return to the diocese in some capacity.