{"id":4938,"date":"2025-09-07T03:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T03:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/4938\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T03:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T03:48:08","slug":"irelands-longest-serving-bishop-announces-his-retirement-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/4938\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s longest-serving bishop announces his retirement \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s only serving bishop appointed in the 20th century, Bishop Paul Colton (65), is to retire after 27 years as Church of Ireland<\/a> Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross.<\/p>\n

In a letter to clergy and co-workers in the united dioceses, he said he believed that \u201cnow, under God, the time has come to retire\u201d. He will do so next April. The 27th anniversary of his election as bishop will be on March 25th, 2026.<\/p>\n

His tenure as Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork<\/a>, Cloyne and Ross is the longest since the first post-Reformation bishop there died in 1617, and the second-longest ever. For many years he has been the longest-serving diocesan bishop, still in office, of the Anglican communion in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England.<\/p>\n

In his letter he said: \u201cThis autumn also marks, for me, the completion of 50 years of ministry in the church, more than 41 of those in Holy Orders, and the others in lay ministry: as a singer, organist and lay reader.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued that \u201cas the last bishop of the Church of Ireland to be elected in the 20th century, it has been my calling and joy to journey with you from the last millennium of our Lord into this new century\u201d. <\/p>\n

He had \u201cconsciously chosen the Easter season [of 2026] as a time to depart. It is the season of resurrection hope, confident faith, and of joyfully moving forward,\u201d he said. His last act in the diocese will be on Saturday April 18th, 2026, when he will lay down his crozier at St Fin Barre\u2019s Cathedral, Cork.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur small, most southerly diocese of the Church of Ireland is remarkable in many ways, but most of all, I believe, because of the commitment, generosity and voluntary work of each of you in countless ways. Thank you for all that you are and all that you do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The consecration of Bishop Colton as Bishop of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross took place in Dublin\u2019s Christ Church Cathedral on March 26th, 1999, amid the furore which followed then president Mary McAleese<\/a> taking communion there, contrary to Catholic teaching, in one of her first acts on assuming office.<\/p>\n

Among those Catholics who took communion at Bishop Colton\u2019s consecration then was minister for education at the time and now Taoiseach, Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a>. Other Catholics present who did so included then Cork Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney<\/a>, then deputy lord mayor of Cork Frank Wallace and then Cork assistant city manager Dan Buggy.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin told The Irish Times afterwards it was not the first time he had taken communion at a reformed church service. In Cork they had been sharing services for a long time. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing new to us in Cork,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s only serving bishop appointed in the 20th century, Bishop Paul Colton (65), is to retire after 27…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5784,46,61,60,5785,1843,43,5786],"class_list":["post-4938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-church-of-ireland","tag-cork","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mary-mcaleese","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-simon-coveney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}