Michael Courtney

Styles of Michael Courtney
Reference style	The Most Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Archbishop
Posthumous style	not applicable

Michael Aidan Courtney (5 February 1945 - 29 December 2003) was the Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi and Titular Archbishop of Eanach Dúin

Courtney was born in Summerhill in Nenagh, County Tipperary. He entered Clonfert Seminary and was ordained a priest on 9 March 1968.

Courtney entered the Holy See's diplomatic service in 1980 and worked at the Nunciatures in South Africa, Senegal, India, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Egypt. He was named the Special Envoy and Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, on 30 December 1995.

Pope John Paul II appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi and Titular Archbishop of Eanach Dúin on 18 August 2000. [1] He received episcopal ordination on 12 November 2000 at St Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh from Francis Arinze, Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, with Bishops John Kirby and William Walsh serving as co-consecrators.

As he returned to Bujumbura from pastoral duties, gunmen fired at his car as he passed Minago, a town about 30 miles south of the capital. Archbishop Courtney suffered gunshot wounds to the head, shoulder and leg and died from hemorrhaging while being operated on. He was 58 years old.

The funeral Mass was celebrated by Cardinals Arinze and Desmond Connell, Archbishop Seán Brady, Papal Nuncio Giuseppe Lazzarotto, and other prominent bishops and clerics from throughout Ireland. Minister for Defence Michael Smith represented the Government of Ireland at the funeral Mass and burial. Also present were many public representatives from Nenagh Town Council and North Tipperary County Council. Archbishop Courtney was survived by his brothers William, Louis, Jim, and sisters Kathleen Vandenberghe, Mary Courtney-Spreng and Eileen Frewen, as well as 16 nephews and nieces.

At his funeral Mass, Cardinal Arinze said that "Nuncio Courtney preached mutual love, Christian reconciliation, harmony and unity between people. He made his own the exhortation of St Paul to the Corinthians: 'We are ambassadors for Christ: it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ's name is: be reconciled to God' (2 Cor 5: 20). It is tragic that this very witness of the love of Christ, this ambassador of the Pope who daily manifested the concern of the Successor of Saint Peter for all citizens of Burundi, is shot dead by the very people he was serving." [2]

Archbishop Courtney was laid to rest at his "heaven on earth" on the shores of Lough Derg in Co Tipperary near Dromineer, six miles outside Nenagh.

Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Emil Paul Tscherrig	Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi 18 August 2000–29 December 2003	Succeeded by Paul Gallagher
Preceded by John Jerome Cunneen	Titular Bishop of Eanach Dhúin 18 August 2000–29 December 2003	Succeeded by Octavio Cisneros

References

• New York Times
• Irish Times

Persondata
Name	Courtney, Michael
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	5 February 1945
Place of birth
Date of death	29 December 2003
Place of death