Cathal Daly (1917-2009) [Archbishop]
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Life
| [Cahal Brendan Daly; Cardinal Cahal B. Daly; freq. Ó Dálaigh]; b. 1 Oct. 1917, Loughguile, Co. Antrim, son of Primary School teacher orig. from Keadue, Co. Roscommon, and his wife, from Co. Antrim; ed. St. Patrick’s National School, Loughghuile; went to St. Malachy’s, Belfast, as a boarder, 1930; grad. QUB (BA in Classics, with Henry Medal); MA in Ancient Classics, 1937; ord. at Maynooth, 1941; doctorate in Divinity, Maynooth, “Tertullian the Puritan and His Influence”, 1945 - part published in the Ecclesiastical Record, 1951); taught Classics at St Malachy’s College, 1945-46; appt. lect. in Scholastic Philosophy at QUB, 1945; took sabbatical to study at Institut Catholique, Paris, 1952, and grad. with licentiate in philosophy, 1953; and was appt. Reader in Philosophy at QUB, 1963; |
| appt. Peritus (Theol. Adviser) initially to Bishop William Philbin, and afterwards to Cardinal Conway, 2nd Vatican Council, 1963-65; appt. bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, 1967; attended meeting of European bishops in Switzerland, 1969; 1972, denounced ‘mystique of the patriotic rifle’, 1972; issued episcopal letter addressed to Protestants, pleading from Christian unity, 1979; succeeded Philbin as Bishop of Down and Connor, 1982; appt. Archbishop of Armagh and Catholic Primate of all-Ireland, 1990 [aetat. 73]; fnd. with others Christus Rex Society, a caucus of conservative Catholic thinkers, to study social problems; appt. to the Irish Theological Commission and Episcopal Commission on Doctrine [RC]; |
| joint chairman of Irish Council of Churches and Roman Catholic Joint Group on Social Questions that produced the report Violence in Ireland (1976), largely in collaboration with Rev. Eric Gallagher (Methodist); made submission in behalf of Catholic Church to New Ireland Forum, 1984; noting ecumenistically that both Nationalism and Unionism were ‘noble aspirations’, July 1989; succeeded Tomás Ó Fiaich [q.v.] to episcopal see of Armagh and Catholic Primacy, Nov. 1990; opposed à la carte approach to Catholic doctrine; responded to George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury’s apologies of the English people to the Irish with the apologies of the Irish people to the English, 1992; |
| strenuously supported conservative theological position against contraception and multi-denominational education; professed himself deeply saddened by revelations about pederastic priest Brendan Smythe, who was sheltered from prosecution his Norbertine Order and the Catholic hierarchy, 1992; published on Morals, Law and Life (1962), Violence in Ireland and Christian Conscience (1973); also Steps on My Pilgrim Journey (1998), autobiography; retired in 1996; spent his last years in Belfast; d. 31 Dec. 2009; lay in state in Belfast, and buried at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, 5 Jan. 2010; he donated his papers to the Linen Hall Library. MIL |
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Works
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Criticism
Jim Corrigan, ‘Cathal Daly’, full page article, Hibernia (15 Feb 1979); see also JH Whyte, Understanding Northern Ireland (1991), and Basil Chubb, The Irish Constitution (1992), for his offering at the New Ireland Forum and the seemingly contradictory social policy of the Catholic bishops.
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Commentary
John O. Whyte, Understanding Northern Ireland (OUP 1990): Quotes Roman Catholic Church’s formal submission to New Forum (1984): ‘Every legal system throughout the world bears the traces of majority opinion and of the public ethos of the majority concensus. This is true of Protestant as well as of Catholic countries. It is true of non-Christian as it is of Christian countries. A Catholic country or its government, where there is a very substantial Catholic ethos and consensus, should not feel it necessary to apologise that its legal system, constitutional or statutory, reflects Catholic values … The rights of the minority are not more sacred than the rights of the majority.’
Further, quotes Bishop Daly: ‘In oral submission [to the Forum], Bishop Cathal Daly of Down said more mildly: “The Catholic Church in Ireland totally rejects the concept of a confessional state. We have not sought and we do not seek a Catholic State for a Catholic people. We believe that the alliance of Church and State is harmful for the Church and harmful for the State ... We are acutely conscious of the fears of the Northern Ireland Protestant community ... What we do here and now declare, we declare with emphasis, is that we would raise our voices to resist any constitutional proposals which might infringe or might imperil the civil and religious rights and liberties cherished by Northern Protestants.”’ (Forum, No. 12; Whyte, op. cit., p.157.)
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Louis McRedmond (obituary in The Guardian, 1 Jan. 2010): ‘Cardinal Cahal Daly, Roman Catholic archbishop emeritus of Armagh and primate emeritus of all Ireland, who has died at the age of 92, was an enigmatic figure in Irish public life. Neither as a churchman nor as a Northern Irish Catholic did he fit any stereotype. He was socially progressive but theologically conservative, intellectually ecumenical but convinced that the official stance of his church on moral issues was alone coterminous with the common good. [...] At a meeting in 1984 of the New Ireland Forum, established by the Irish prime minister Garret FitzGerald to elicit views from north and south, the bishop said that the hierarchy would not stand in the way of moves to achieve a reconciled society, and would, in fact, oppose constitutional proposals that could endanger the civil and religious rights of northern Protestants. The following year, however, saw the bishops resisting the proposal to lift another prohibition in the republic, the constitutional ban on the enactment of divorce legislation. In northern Protestant eyes, this was a further sign that the Catholic church had no intention of taking into account the views of persons who disagreed with its doctrines, notwithstanding what Daly had told the forum.’ (Available online; accessed 31 Dec. 2010.)
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Quotations
Violence in Ireland (1973): ‘The Ulster myth … ignored the existence within its own State and territory of nearly half a million people, more than a third of its population, whose home had always been Ulster, but an Ulster totally differently understood, totally otherwise loved.’ (p.155; quoted in John Montague, ‘Regionalism into Reconciliation: The Poetry of John Hewitt’, Poetry Ireland, 3, Spring 1964, p.124.)
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New Ireland Forum (1984): ‘What we do here and now declare and declare with emphasis, is that we would raise our voices to resist any consitutional proposal which might infringe or might imperil the civil and religious rights and liberties cherished by northern protestants.’ (Quoted in R.L. McCartney, QC, MPA, Liberty and Authority in Ireland [Field day Pamphlet No. 9], Field Day 1985, p.17.)
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Provo campaign: Cathal Daly, speaking at QUB in April 1993: ‘This campaign cannot but be seen by Protestants as a concerted campaign on this whole community, intended to drive them from their homes, particularly in exposed areas.’ (Quoted in Steve Bruce, The Edge of the Union, The Ulster Loyalist Political Vision, OUP 1994, p.48.)
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