Years after his death in 2009, people continued to talk about Fr Colm O’Brien.
The bishop of Lismore and Waterford Alphonsus Cullinan had not known the young priest personally but his curiosity was piqued. Fr O’Brien, originally from Waterford, had died of cancer aged 36, a mere nine years after his ordination in 2000.
Many people had been impressed by the character and holiness of Fr. O'Brien, Bishop Cullinan wrote in a message to parishes in the diocese calling a meeting to discuss the priest. “The question of promoting his cause for beatification and canonisation has arisen”. The bishop wished to explore whether Fr. Colm’s life was marked by the 'heroic virtue' which would justify the Church calling him 'Servant of God' - the first stage on the road to sainthood.
At the meeting in late November, more than a hundred people braved storm Diana to travel to a hotel in Clonmel, Tipperary, where Fr O’Brien had been curate for eight years. Sitting around circular tables in groups of ten they shared stories of the young priest – hearing moving testimonies, according to one participant “of how Fr. Colm always showed good humour, had time for everyone, had a deep devotion to the Eucharist, was a person of exceptional but unostentatious piety and humility, attracted queues of people to his confessional, and bore his painful illness with great patience”.
"It was a wonderful meeting, celebrating holiness, goodness, simplicity and faith, and it was a beautiful sense of grace on the night," Bishop Cullinan told the Irish Independent. "He was a person who touched a lot of people. He would arrive late to almost everything because he would stop to talk to everybody from the car to the house and he couldn't get from one end of the street to the other without having several conversations.
"He had an extraordinary humility, simplicity and joy about him and a sense of humour."
A small team of people, together with Bishop Cullinan is now putting together an account of Fr O’Brien’s life, including testimonies from those who knew him, which will be presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
The bishop is asking people who met or remember Fr Colm O’Brien, or to whom he wrote, to write down their testimonies and send them to ‘info@waterfordlismore.ie’ marking the subject line: 'Fr Colm O'Brien'.
A priest at the meeting, Fr Michael Mullins recalled a comment someone made to him at Fr Colm O’Brien’s funeral. “Colm is the antidote to all the bad publicity about priests."
“If nothing else happens but if people think about a good holy priest, it [the meeting] will have been worth it,” said Bishop Cullinan.
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