BISHOP Donal McKeown will “rise to the challenge” of running two large Catholic dioceses, despite the “huge responsibility” he will have to undertake, a leading religious commentator has said.
Michael Kelly also said he believes it was a “little bit of a surprise” that the Vatican “intervened” to appoint the Bishop of Derry for the role of Apostolic Administrator of Down and Connor, instead of allowing the priests in the diocese to choose.
“Clearly they (Vatican) felt that it needed someone with Bishop Donal’s experience to run it rather than one of the priests in the diocese,” he said.
His comments come after the appointment of Bishop McKeown to temporarily take over the running of a second northern diocese.
The 72-year-old is currently in charge of the Diocese of Derry and with immediate effect last week became Apostolic Administrator of Down and Connor, a role he will carry out until a permanent Diocesan Bishop is appointed.
Bishop Noel Treanor confirmed he is stepping down from Down and Connor to become Apostolic Nuncio to the European Union.
Mr Kelly, editor of The Irish Catholic newspaper, said it a massive role, that in effect will see Bishop McKeown “running the largest pastoral area on the island” of Ireland.
“In terms of his responsibility it is an awesome responsibility, he is Bishop of Derry which has 51 parishes, 260,000 Catholics and then Down and Connor you have another 87 parishes with 406,000 extra Catholics,” he said.
“After Dublin, it means that he is the bishop in the country running the largest pastoral area on the island and you have a lot of urban areas there, big cities like Belfast and Derry and huge towns like Omagh and Strabane.
“It’s a huge diocese, the diocese of Derry is huge to run without adding Down and Connor, it’s a huge responsibility and a huge amount of decision-making to be made.
“Bear in mind it’s not like 30 years ago when dioceses effectively ran themselves.
“We are in a situation now where bishops are dealing with fewer priests and in many ways there’s still the pastoral expectations – people are still dying, people still want to get married and people still want to have their child baptised, but the number of priests is far fewer.
“I think Bishop Donal will rise to the challenge, he is helped by the fact he is a priest of the Down and Connor diocese, he will know a lot of the priests in Down and Connor.
“He also served as an Auxillary Bishop in Down and Connor before going to Derry, so he will have been at a lot of meetings so it’s not new to him – he’s not going into the diocese completely unaware, I think that will be beneficial to him as well.”
Mr Kelly said the process of finding a permanent appointment for Bishop of Down and Connor could “last around a year and there are all types of decisions that have to be made and you just can’t leave the diocese to run itself”.
“What will be going on now, parallel with the appointment of Bishop Donal, is the Vatican undertaking a consultation exercise, trying to get a short-list of three potential candidates to replace Noel Treanor,” he said.
“That is further complicated by the fact we don’t currently have a Vatican Ambassador in Dublin as this post is vacant as well.
“We are awaiting the appointment of a new Papal Nuncio and once he is appointed that should speed up the process of Down and Connor a little bit. The difficulty is that whenever the Vatican makes an appointment like Noel Treanor going to Brussels, they don’t think of the knock-on-effect. They don’t think, who are we going to replace him with in Belfast and that starts off an entirely new process.
“You also have a situation now, Donal McKeown will be 73 in April, but bishops retire when they are 75. Realistically you could have a situation whereby Bishop McKeown is retiring just as the Bishop of Down and Connor is appointed so that is an issue.
“He will also be saying to Rome, Down and Connor needs a new bishop soon – again the dilemma Rome is faced with is with Bishop Donal turning 75 in just two years time, Derry will then need a new bishop as well.”
Mr Kelly added that he “surprised” that a priest from the Down and Connor was not appointed on a temporary basis.
“The temporary appointment is not a huge surprise, what is a surprise is that the Vatican didn’t allow the priests of Down and Connor to choose their own Apostolic Administrator,” he said.
“Normally the priests themselves will choose one of themselves to be the temporary governor of the diocese, so the fact that the Vatican intervened here is a little bit of a surprise.
“Clearly they felt that it needed someone with Bishop Donal’s experience to run it rather than one of the priests in the diocese.”
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