Rebel Bishop Pat Buckley has died aged 72

The rebel Irish Bishop, who was a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church for almost 50 years, has died.

Bishop Pat Buckley passed away peacefully at his Co Antrim home on May 17, after a short illness. He was 72.

Just a day earlier, he carried out his final act, officiating at a wedding in the traveller community.

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Months before he passed away the Bishop spoke to Belfast Live at his Oratory home in Larne, and acknowledged he was struggling with his health but remained determined to carry on working.

He said: “I’m getting older, I’m HIV positive, I have Chrohn’s disease and heart problems, but I will keep on going while I am able.

“Advancing age is inevitable to those who are fortunate to experience it and I am grateful for my years, my HIV status is well controlled and gives me no problems. I have struggled more with stomach and heart problems but nothing that a cup of tea and a chat won’t ease.

“Maybe I’m getting more sentimental as I get older, but I seem to feel things more deeply now than ever. I miss my mother Josephine, dearly every day, I miss my sister Mags so badly, I miss my dogs who have passed away, I miss friends I don’t see but I am blessed and loved and I hold on to that every day.”

Sitting in Spiderman cartoon print pyjamas in the crowded kitchen of the property, Pat Buckley said he was determined to keep working until the day he died - and it appears that is just what happened.

In the meeting in January, he said: “I have work to do, I have people to help and support, and to expose wrongdoings. This has been my life’s work, this has been my purpose and my joy. I'll keep going until I go to Glory.

“I feel I’ve beaten the Catholic Church on my terms, I challenged them as they challenged me, I met them face on and I boxed hard. Their problem with me was that I was never afraid.

“I called them out on their hypocrisy and I will continue to do that, and I will challenge them and name names with my dying breath.

“It has been my matter of pride to hold them to account while I work to support the people who have needed me most.

“I officiate at marriages they scowl at but I’m a man who celebrates love and I will never be deterred from helping people who love each other.

“I hope when I die there will be others who will continue my work, continue to fight for justice for people too weak or unable to fight for themselves.

“I hope there will be people who will listen and offer a sympathetic ear for those who are troubled or find themselves in a mess they feel they can’t get out of.

“I hope there will be people who will continue to look after the vulnerable, human and animal, who will stand up even if they have to stand alone.

“And I include in that people who want to be married , who love each other but have found their path blocked by others. These are my people and I am happy to say I have helped thousands of people along the way.

“I’ve not been perfect in my life, but I have followed my instincts, worked hard to do the right thing and to do good, and I hope to carry on for many years to come.”

The self-styled independent Catholic bishop was excommunicated from the Catholic Church over his open and vocal challenges on authority, his views on marriage and homosexuality and his ordination to the episcopate by Bishop Michael Cox on 19 May 1998.

A month after he was ordained, Jim Cantwell, director of the Irish Catholic Press and Information Office, said that consecration was “valid but illicit”. Both Michael Cox and Pat Buckley were excommunicated by the Catholic Church.

Undeterred, he officiated at thousands of marriages of divorcees, same sex couples, couples from the Traveller community and many more people who found themselves on the fringes of society, and he baptised babies from inter-faith marriages and supported many through the courts.

His desire for people to celebrate their love, landed him in trouble in 2013 when he was paid to officiate at 14 which turned out to be fake. He claimed he had been used by others and had initially seen nothing untoward in what he was doing. He said at the time: “My guilty plea goes against everything I stand for. I took on the marriages in good faith and I was used. I pleaded guilty in a bid to shorten the process because my health is not good.” He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years, suspended for three years.

Pat Buckley was born in Tullamore, County Offaly, and was the eldest of 17 children, six of them dying shortly after birth. His father was a trade union official who later became a barrister and his socialist views influenced his son Pat.

He said an innate desire to help others as a child led him to want to become a priest and he also served as a local councillor on Larne Borough Council.

He studied for the priesthood in Clonliffe College, Dublin, and then in St John’s College, Waterford where he was ordained in 1976.

He later gained a master’s degree in politics and social anthropology from Queen’s University Belfast and he stayed in the city for his first posting in St Peter’s in West Belfast.

During the 1981 IRA Irish hunger strike, he celebrated Mass in the Maze prison and blessed hunger striker Bobby Sands.

Following disagreements with Cardinal Cahal Daly, Pat Buckley was assigned to Kilkeel parish in 1983 and later claimed that Cardinal Daly had offered to move him to an Australian parish before deciding to assign him to Larne, a mainly Protestant town, in 1984. It would be another two years before he was suspended from the priesthood.

Pat continued to clash with Daly in public. When told his service in the diocese was no longer needed, Buckley refused to move out of the parochial home.

And in 2011 he took a legal case against the Diocese of Down and Connor claiming Squatters’ Rights and a year later, an agreement was reached which allowed him to remain in the property.

He said: “I got to stay, I got an agreement to have the property fully renovated and a church created in my home and I had a rather nice kitchen taken from an Archbishop’s home and put into mine.”

That home today is packed with what Pat Buckley described as ‘the secrets they never want you to know’.

What his friends will do without him now, is unclear, in particular the woman he supported and guarded so fiercely, the members-only counselling community for priests' 'housekeepers' where they could talk openly to each other without fear.

He said: “I keep files on criminal, moral and ethical situations all related to the Catholic Church, naming names, with testimonies going back many years that I’m quite sure they’d like to see burned. But you know me, there’s always a back up plan.”

Pat Buckley came out in 1999 and in February 2010, married his boyfriend of three years, Eduardo Yanga, 32, from the Philippines, in a ceremony in their Larne home.

An announcement on Pat’s popular blog on Friday, May 17 said: “The Oratory Society regrets to inform you that Bishop Pat Buckley died peacefully this morning after a short illness.”

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