Up & Down in Down & Connor

The Holy Father has accepted the retirement of Bishop Patrick Walsh as Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland.

The Holy Father has named as the new Bishop of Down and Connor Monsignor Noel Teanor of the Diocese of Clogher, who has up to now been Secretary of the Commission of Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) in Brussels.

Bishop-elect Treanor was born in County Monaghan in the Diocese of Clogher in 1950. He went to school at St. Mary’s Christian Brothers in Monaghan and then Philosophy and Theology studies at St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, earning a License in Sacred Theology.

He was ordained a priest June 13, 1976 for the Diocese of Clogher. After ordination, he studied Theology for some years at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In 1980 he was made Parochial Vicar for the parish of the Cathedral of Clogher and served on the Catholic Marriage Advisor Council.

In 1985 he was named Director of the Office for Adult Education and was charged in 1986 with organizing the Diocesan Assembly for Pastoral Renewal.

In 1989 he was appointed to COMECE, later becoming Secretary General. His four-year term in that office would be renewed four times.

He was named a Chaplain to His Holiness in 1994.

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Also in Ireland, The Holy Father has named as Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, up to now Nuncio to Bulgaria.