Michael Courtney

Michael Courtney I Clongowes 1956-1962

Michael Courtney (1945-2003), archbishop and papal diplomat, was a native of Nenagh, County Tipperary, who attended Clongowes in 1956-62, where he was school captain. After a short time in UCD, he attended the Irish College in Rome. In 1968 he was ordained a priest for the diocese of Clonfert, serving as curate of Tynagh and Woodford. He returned to Rome in 1976 for postgraduate studies, taking out a licentiate in canon law and a doctorate in moral theology. He then entered the Pontifical Diplomatic Academy, where he studied political science, international and diplomatic law. From 1980 he held a succession of junior diplomatic appointments for the Holy See in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Senegal, India, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Egypt. He developed a good relationship with President Fidel Castro in Cuba, based on their mutual Jesuit education. In 1995 he became special envoy to the Council of Europe and allied institutions in Strasbourg. He was also permanent observer of the Holy See to the International Commission of the Civil State and a member of the governing board of the Council of Europe Development Bank in Paris. He was a regular visitor to Nenagh, where he liked to holiday beside his beloved Lough Derg and race his Shannon-one-design dinghy in the annual sailing regatta, occasionally ending up in the water. Ordained titular archbishop of Annaghdown in 2000, he was appointed nuncio to Burundi, where he was murdered in 2003. Cardinal Francis Arinze, who had ordained him archbishop, said at his funeral:

Nuncio Courtney preached mutual love, Christian reconciliation, harmony and unity between people… It is tragic that this very witness of the love of Christ, this ambassador of the pope who daily manifested the concern of the successor of Saint Peter for all citizens of Burundi is shot dead by the very people he was serving. He is buried at Dromineer on the shore of Lough Derg.