Patrick Buckley

Who is Patrick Buckley?

Patrick "Pat" Buckley is a former priest of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland who was excommunicated as a result of his ordination as a bishop in an independent church. As an illicitly ordained bishop he is not a member of the Irish episcopal conference and is not treated as a bishop by bishops in communion with Rome.

Buckley was born in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland and is now living at The Oratory, Larne, County Antrim, a house which used to belong to the Catholic Diocese of Down and Connor and which Buckley refused to leave following his suspension from the priesthood in 1986 by the then bishop, Cahal Daly.

Buckley studied at Clonliffe College and then at St. John's College, Waterford. He was ordained a Roman Catholic diocesan priest in 1976 in Waterford by the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Michael Russell, and subsequently ordained a bishop by Independent Catholic Bishop Michael Cox in the episcopal lineage of Archbishop Ngo Den Thuc on 19 May 1998. He was co-consecrated by Bishop Peter Paul Brennan of New York in the Cardinal Rebiba lineage – a lineage shared by most of the current bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.