Bishop Cornelius Lucey, Father James Good, The Bishop in Kenya

Bishop Cornelius Lucey

Bishop Lucey was the equivalent in Cork of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid in Dublin - although no one has (yet) accused him of child abuse! Like his Arch-episcopal colleague, Bishop Lucey was very much a pre-Vatican 11 man.

In 1968 Bishop Lucey felt obliged to discipline theologian Father James Good because of of the latter's criticism of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae on birth control. Seven years later in 1975, Father Good went to work as a missionary in Kenya and when Bishop Lucey retired in 1980 he went to the Turkana desert to join Father Good as an ordinary curate - although his health was failing and he had only two years left to live. Father Good wrote in generous terms about the deceased Bishop at the time and subsequently.

In September 2008 a curious exchange of correspondence took place in the Irish Times between Father Good and the editor of the Irish Catholic, Garry O'Sullivan regarding the role of Opus Dei. It suggests that Bishop Lucey's concerns about Fr Good were not totally misplaced.