Cornelius "Con" Lucey (1902–1982) was a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

bishop of Cork and Ross The Bishop of Cork and Ross is an episcopal title which takes its name after the city of Cork and the County Cork town of Rosscarbery in the Republic of Ireland. The combined title was first used by the Church of Ireland from 1638 to 1660 and ...

Youth and education

Cornelius Lucey was born 15 July 1902 into a farming family at Windsor,

Ovens, County Cork Ovens (), formerly also Athnowen, is a small village adjacent to the town of Ballincollig, County Cork, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The 2006 census recorded that the population of the village was 1,703 - an increase of 62.1% from the 2002 Cen ...

near

Cork City Cork ( ; from , meaning 'marsh') is the second-largest city in Republic of Ireland, Ireland, the county town of County Cork, the largest city in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the List of settlements on the island of Ireland ...

. He attended Ballinora Primary School and played for the local GAA club. He studied at St Finbarr's College, Farranferris, the diocesan college. He graduated from

St Patrick's College, Maynooth St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth (), is a pontifical Catholic university in the town of Maynooth near Dublin, Ireland Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mou ...

with BC and BCL, and obtained MAs at

Innsbruck University The University of Innsbruck (; ) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. It is the largest education facility in the Austrian Bundesland of Tirol, and the th ...

in 1927–29 and then

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

from 1929 to 1930.

Priestly ministry

Lucey was ordained a

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

in 1927. He held the chair of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and political theory at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth from 1929 to 1950. Alongside Peter McKevitt, he was one of the founders of Christus Rex, a priestly society devoted to social issues, on which he was a prominent commentator.

Episcopal ministry

In November 1950 Lucey was appointed titular bishop of Sila and auxiliary bishop of Cork with right of succession, and was consecrated bishop the following January. Upon the death of Bishop Cohalan, in August 1952, Lucey became Bishop of Cork. In 1958 the Diocese of Ross united with the Diocese of Cork. Shortly after his appointment as Bishop of Cork And Ross, Lucey embarked on a plan to build five new churches in the rapidly developing suburbs of Cork. The five new churches were named after the five Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. During his tenure, he founded a total of thirteen churches in Cork. He founded the St. Anne's

Adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...

Society in 1954. His outspoken sermons, often given at

confirmation In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant (religion), covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. The ceremony typically involves laying on o ...

s, made him something of a thorn in the side of the establishment. His views on matters of faith and morals were conservative, and he was involved in a controversy in the 1960s, when he withdrew the diocesan faculties of Father James Good, a lecturer at University College, Cork, for publicly dissenting from the teaching of

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXII ...

. In 1965 Bishop Lucey started the Cork diocesan

mission Mission (from Latin 'the act of sending out'), Missions or The Mission may refer to: Geography Australia *Mission River (Queensland) Canada *Mission, British Columbia, a district municipality * Mission, Calgary, Alberta, a neighbourhood * ...

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, where many priests from Cork ministered. The last of the Irish missioners returned from La Esperanza to Ireland in 2004.

African Ministry in Retirement

Lucey retired as bishop in 1980. He went to the

Turkana District The Turkana District was an administrative district in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. It was the northwesternmost district in the country and is bordered by Uganda to the west; South Sudan and Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Fed ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

to work as an ordinary

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

with Fr. James Good, who had gone there some years earlier. Good later described the last two years of the Bishop's life and his reaction to Turkana customs: :The parish priest of Lorogumu was an advanced

liturgist Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

and (among other things) had introduced general absolution along with an entrance rite to Sunday Mass in which six ladies clad (or unclad) à la Turkana custom danced to the altar before the priest. I panicked but Bishop Lucey got his way and was duly installed as curate in Lorogumu, under Fr Tony Barrett, a

Kiltegan Kiltegan () is a village in west County Wicklow, Ireland, on the R747 regional road close to the border with County Carlow. The village is in a townland and civil parish of the same name. The civil parish extends into County Carlow. Accordin ...

priest who was an expert in

Turkana language Turkana Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh is the language of the Turkana people of Kenya and Ethiopia. It is spoken in northwestern Kenya, primarily in Turkana County, which lies west of Lake Turkana. It is ...

and custom. It was a perfect combination: one might describe it as a perfect marriage of minds and of mutual admiration. At a later date I asked Bishop Lucey how he liked the Lorogumu liturgy and he replied 'very beautiful'.

Death and legacy

After nearly two years in Kenya he became seriously ill. He was flown back to Cork in May 1982, and was diagnosed with leukaemia. He died on 24 September 1982 at Bon Secours Hospital, Cork. In 1985, as part of the Cork 800 festival, a site between Grand Parade and South Main Street was developed into an

urban park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a city park, municipal park (North America), public park, public open space, or municipal gardens (United Kingdom, UK), is a park or botanical garden in cities, densely populated suburbia and oth ...

named " Bishop Lucey Park".

References