claim denied by Irish Church

By Ltixn COPPEN CHURCH authorities in Northern Ireland have rejected claims that they tried to silence a controversial priest with a bribe.
Maverick priest Fr Pat Buckley made the allegation this week, after it emerged that he had been made a bishop in a private ceremony by a Tridentine priest on May 19.
Fr Buckley told the Catholic Herald on Monday that the Catholic Hierarchy offered him a sum of money and a position in the Church through his lawyer, if he would stop his controversial ministry, which has included the "remarriage" of thousands of divorced Catholics and led to his dismissal as a parish priest in 1986. "The Catholic Hierarchy tried to persuade me to do a *deal' with them," he alleged.
Fr Buckley said his lawyer told him on June 5 that Church representatives had offered him a deal during "without prejudice" legal negotiations. Fr Buckley understood that in return for discontinuing his ministry and confessing he had been consecrated without papal permission, he would be supported financially by the Church for three "silent" years and then be made a media advisor to the Bishop of Down and Connor, Bishop Patrick Walsh.
Fr John McManus, spokesman for Bishop Walsh, categorically denied the allegation. "We're not in the business of making deals," he said. But Fr Buckley insisted that the offer was aired in discus sions between his lawyer and Church lawyers. These negotiations followed a letter dated May 7 in which Bishop Walsh informed Fr Buckley that he faced suspension unless he agreed to accept the authority of the Church and stop marrying divorced couples.
Twelve days later, Fr Buckley was made a bishop by the unauthorised Tridentine Bishop Michael Cox at Fr Buckley's home in Larne, County Antrim.
The Catholic Press Office in Dublin responded with a statement indicating that Fr Buckley and Fr Cox were both automatically excommunicated according to Canon Law, which forbids consecration without a papal mandate.
Fr Buckley believed that his consecration was the main reason for the alleged deal. "My consecration was the engine driving it," he said.
But Bishop Walsh's spokesman rejected this. He said, "The first we heard of the unauthorised ordination was June 14" a full nine days after Fr Buckley claimed he was told of the deal.
Fr Buckley and Fr Cox have agreed to meet the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Luciano Storer° and Archbishop Sean Brady to discuss the affair. But an imminent reconciliation between Fr Buckley and the Church hierarchy seems unlikely. Fr Buckley intends to create a society with Fr Cox to minister to "excluded" groups, such as the gay community and priests who have left the Church.