Church leaders in Ireland pay tribute to Pope Leo XIV

Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin described Pope Leo as “a friend of Ireland”.

Church leaders in Ireland have paid tribute to Pope Leo’s pastoral experience in the peripheries of the Church and his experience of leadership and governance in the Church.

Welcoming the election of the Chicago-born pontiff, Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell noted he had been chosen by his Augustinian confrères to give guidance in a time of change and renewal.

“He has now been chosen from among the cardinals to guide the Lord’s flock at this very important time, a difficult time for the whole world,” he said.

Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin described Pope Leo as “a friend of Ireland”. In an interview with the Irish News he said he hoped to invite him to visit Northern Ireland in the coming years.

“Two Popes who have come to the island of Ireland have not come to Northern Ireland. I think he’d have no hesitation in coming if the circumstances and the context would allow it,” he said.

He described the new pope as “a wonderful listener” recalling his meeting with him along with the three other Irish archbishops in the Vatican earlier this year.

“He knows about Ireland; in fact when he was a bishop in Peru he sent his seminarians to the Irish College in Rome.”

Bishop of Limerick Brendan Leahy recalled being in Pope Leo’s company on a number of occasions thanks to the Synod on Synodality in Rome.

He said he found the North American “a humble, kind man” and said he would “bring the qualities needed for these challenging times. I was struck in his speech by his focus on peace, bridge-building, dialogue and justice,” Bishop Leahy said.

As Prior General of the Augustinian Order between 2001 and 2013, the future pope visited Ireland in 2005 to mark 700 years of Augustinians in Ireland.

Irish Augustinian, Fr Kieran O’Mahony was in St Peter’s Square when the announcement was made that the cardinal with whom he had lunch last November had been selected to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. The professor of scripture described the 69-year-old pontiff as “a great guy” who is “on the side of the poor”.

Another Augustinian Fr Iggy O’Donovan attended Fr Robert Prevost’s ordination to the priesthood in Rome in 1982 where Fr Prevost was studying canon law while Fr O’Donovan was studying history.

He said Pope Leo would bring “moral leadership” on peace and would be “a beacon of hope” for “a morally bankrupt world dominated by Putin, Trump and Xi Jinping of China”.

In Peru, an Irish missionary who worked with Pope Leo believes the new pontiff is pastorally aligned with Pope Francis.

“He is a man who is serious about listening to the cry of the earth and also the cry of the poor. He would be totally onside with everything that a person like me would be doing and stand for in REPAM [a Catholic Church network that promotes the rights and dignity of people living in the Amazon] in the human rights and the environment,” Columban Fr Peter Hughes, who has worked in Peru since 1966, said.

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