Bishop denounces recent Red Cross murders in Kerry
Killarney, 30 August 1922 – The Bishop of Kerry, Charles O’Sullivan, has condemned the murder of two young members of the Red Cross during the past week as a ‘revolting crime’.
In a letter that was read out at mass in Killarney on Sunday 27 August, Dr O’Sullivan said that he was shocked when he learned of the incident.
The Red Cross had come to Kerry, he said, ‘not as combatants, but solely on a mission of mercy and charity. Their mission was to act the part of the good Samaritan… not to inflict pain, but to give all possible aid and comfort to the wounded and suffering.’
‘No language can be strong enough to denounce this atrocious crime’, the bishop explained. ‘Even the infidel Turk respects the Red Cross.’
Bishop O’Sullivan reminded his congregation of a previous statement made by the Catholic hierarchy which accused the Irregulars of waging a ‘shameful war upon their own country’ and stated that it was the bishops who laid down the moral code as it was they whom the Holy Spirit had chosen to rule the Church of Christ. Individual priests, he insisted, could only teach that which the bishops had approved and sanctioned.
The argument that this was a political or secular matter, and therefore beyond the hierarchy’s remit, held no credence.
The message from the pulpit was a clear and unambiguous denunciation of the Irregulars’ activity. It went out to those who were guilty of ‘hateful crimes’, as well as their comrades who engaged in the destruction of property, the commandeering of goods from traders or farmers, and those who turned their weapons on their own countrymen. All of them were acting in ‘defiance of the moral law, and are literally guilty, in the words of the bishops, of brigandage and murder.’
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
