Martin Delaney (ACP AGM 2025 guest speaker): His column from The Irish Catholic 20 Nov 2025 – A Letter from a Tired Diocese

To His Holiness, Pope Leo

Most Holy Father,

I write with deep respect to share how the past decade has been experienced by the priests and people of the Diocese of Ossory. Procedures are one thing; their human and pastoral impact is another.

In less than ten years, Ossory has entered three separate periods without a bishop—including the one we are in now. Each vacancy has lasted many months and required a diocesan administrator; the first two administrators each served almost two years. Between these vacancies we have had three different bishops, each with his own approach and priorities. In effect, our diocese has experienced five different administrations and three major interruptions of leadership within a single decade. I simply wish to express the strain it has placed on our diocesan life. The rapid succession of leaders has meant constantly beginning again—new language, new plans, new emphases—often before earlier initiatives had time to mature. What we lack is not enthusiasm but continuity, the thread that allows a diocesan family to grow steadily and confidently across time.

As you know, a bishop’s retirement, death, or transfer causes diocesan structures to fall silent. In Ossory this has now happened three times in a decade. The Priests’ Council, the Diocesan Pastoral Council, and many other bodies all dissolve automatically. Diocesan life repeatedly pauses and restarts, as though we were a system to be reset rather than a community to be accompanied.

The recent death of Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy reminded many that her extraordinary social justice ministry began here in Ossory, in partnership with Bishop Peter Birch. In those years, Ossory helped lead the national conversation on justice and compassion. That history makes our present uncertainty especially painful.

With further irony, the national Synodal Assembly met in Ossory just weeks ago. Unknown to most of us, the decision regarding our bishop’s transfer had probably already been made. As the country gathered to reflect on a listening Church, the host diocese stood at the threshold of another leadership vacuum.

What has this meant on the ground? Weakening morale. Dedicated lay people and priests commit themselves wholeheartedly to ministry, planning, and pastoral initiatives. Yet with every leadership change, the ground shifts again. It is hard to maintain enthusiasm when no one seems to stay long enough to see a pastoral plan through.

Worse still, there appears to be little awareness of this impact. Even basic communication seems to have slipped. Many of us learned that Bishop Niall Coll—only with us since early 2023—had been appointed Bishop of Raphoe not through any diocesan notice, but when it was publicly announced in Letterkenny Cathedral at 11 a.m. on 12 November. For a diocese repeatedly urged to operate in a “synodal way”, the irony is painful. Synodality is built on relationship, listening, transparency and mutual respect. Yet the clergy and people of Ossory were left entirely out of the conversation.

The appointment of Bishop Niall to his native diocese is understandable, and we genuinely wish him well. But for us it marks yet another abrupt rupture—another start-again moment, another stretch of uncertainty. Many of us in Ossory are left quietly asking: What is going on? Why does our diocese seem unable to retain a bishop for more than a few years? Is there some wider plan at play?

We hear talk of possible amalgamation—with Ferns, or with Kildare and Leighlin. What we ask, Holy Father, is simply to be included as participants rather than informed only afterward. Worse still would be some form of pretend consultation if decisions have already been made. Our people long for clarity, and for the dignity of being part of the discernment of our own future.

I do not write to criticise, still less to complain. I write because I love this diocese, which once led the way nationally in justice and pastoral imagination, and because I believe synodality begins with honest, respectful speech. Ossory is a faithful and generous local Church. After a decade of uncertainty, we long for stability, continuity, and genuine communication—not as luxuries, but as the basic conditions for mission.

Holy Father, I entrust these concerns to your prayer, your wisdom, and your pastoral care for the whole Church. Thank you for hearing the voice of a small diocese that simply wishes to serve Christ with clarity, steadiness, and joy.

With filial devotion,

A priest of Ossory

Prophetic Words

Many in Ossory have been recalling this week the prophetic opening lines of the homily preached at Bishop Niall Coll’s Episcopal Ordination in Kilkenny back in January 2023. The eloquent homilist began by quoting the opening lines of Paul Brady’s song, The Homes of Donegal ‘I’ve just dropped in to see you all I’ll only stay awhile ‘

And on a lighter note!

A parishioner in Ossory said to her priest,
“Father, I’m beginning to think bishops are like buses.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you wait for years for one… then three come and go before you know it — and none of them stop long enough for you to get on!”