TRIBUTES have been paid to Ireland’s longest-serving Catholic bishop Most Reverand Anthony J Farquhar following the announcement of his retirement.
The Catholic Church today confirmed that Pope Francis had accepted 75-year-old Dr Farquhar’s resignation after serving for more than three decades as Auxiliary Bishop of Down and Connor.
In a statement, the Church said that since his ordination in 1965, the religious leader, known as 'Bishop Tony' to friends and colleagues, had served much of his ministry against the backdrop of the Troubles.
Bishop Farquhar acknowledged the “support and encouragement” he had received from the late Cardinal Cahal Daly, and commented on the close friendship he had forged over the years with Bishop Patrick Walsh, with whom he worked closely for 25 years.
“It is to the great family of down and connor, bishops, clergy and laity that I would wish to acknowledge my greatest debt, to my native parish of Holy Rosary and of course to the deceased members of my family and my sister, Anne,” he said.
Bishop Farquhar also expressed pleasure that during his service to the Church he had been able to maintain his love of student sport and university football.
Leading tributes to the bishop, Primate of All Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin said that he was “held in great affection by people throughout the country” through his work as “a teacher, lecturer, chaplain and in the area of inter-Church and inter-faith relations”.
“At bishop conference meetings we shall miss Bishop Tony’s intelligent and informed contributions. A profoundly spiritual pastor, he has an innate understanding of the human condition, and his God-given gifts of warmth, wisdom and empathy leave a lasting impression on all with whom he comes in contact,” the archbishop added.
He also praised the bishop’s “immense role” in furthering ecumenism, saying: “His engagement and work with our fellow Christian denominations, especially during the Troubles, was of enormous support to sustaining the nascent peace process. I know that the leaders of the other Christian traditions greatly esteem his work for unity.”
Bishop Farquhar chaired the Commission on Ecumenism of the Irish Episcopal Conference when he steered it to take up its associate membership of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI).
Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor also said his religious colleague had “greatly contributed” the field of ecumenism and the promotion of understanding and reconciliation both nationally and internationally.
“Over the past seven years of my ministry with him as bishops of Down and Connor, from the first moment of my arrival into the diocese, I have experienced his warm support, pastoral wisdom, guidance and insightful knowledge of the diocese,” Dr Treanor said.
Born in the Belfast Parish of Holy Rosary in September 1940, Bishop Farquhar attended St Malachy’s College before graduating with a degree in classics from Queen's University Belfast.
He continued his priestly formation and theological studies at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome in 1961 while living in the nearby Pontifical Irish College, graduating with both a Bachelors Degree in Theology (BD) and a Licentiate in Theological Studies (STL) in 1965 and returning home to the Diocese of Down and Connor.
Bishop Farquhar was ordained a priest in March 1965 and his first appointment in the diocese was to the parish of Dunsford and Ardglass that following September.
In March 1966, he was appointed as chaplain to Musgrave Park Hospital alongside chaplaincy to Forster Green Hospital and St Patrick’s Training School, Glen Road.
Six months later, he was appointed to the staff of St MacNissi’s College, Garron Tower, where he taught until 1970 before taking up an appointment as assistant chaplain at Queen’s University Belfast. In 1975, he became chaplain and lecturer to the new University of Ulster as well as chaplain to the Dominican College in Portstewart.
On May 15 1983, he was ordained as an Auxiliary Bishop of Down and Connor.
