THE Catholic Bishop of Ferns, Dr Breadan Comiskey, yesterday thanked the Protestant community for their support during the media controversy surrounding his absence from the diocese last year.
Attending the Church of Ireland Synod in the diocese of Ferns for the first time, Bishop Comiskey expressed his appreciation of the support given to him by the Protestant clergy and laity.
"I have special reason for attending today," he said. "I wanted to come and personally thank the family of the Church of Ireland for your extraordinary support during my recent ordeal.
"It was remarked on throughout the land that in my darkest hour it was Bishop Noel Willoughby, Bishop John Neill and Rev Nigel Waugh who were most prominent in speaking up for me," he said.
The attitude of the Church of Ireland had surpassed the expectation of virtue and for obvious reasons, the Church of Ireland community, both the clergy and the laity, was held in high repute by his family, he said.
During a 15 minute address, Dr Comiskey, who has retained a low profile since his return from America last February, said it had taken him 60 years of living to appreciate the power of denial in his life.
He had learned from his experience in Alcoholics Anonymous that in standing up at meetings and saying "I'm Brendan, I'm an alcoholic", the degree to which that statement was meant, was the degree to which there was healing, he said.
"If I say it as a formality, no healing takes place. If I say at the beginning of Mass `I'm Brendan I'm a sinner' which I do every day and not own that sinhood, there is no action of grace and the Mass is quite empty I believe."
Reacting to news of Bishop Willoughby's retirement, Bishop Comiskey said. "We will never have in this diocese again, someone who is as good, decent, upright and Christian as you. I will miss you more than you will ever know."