Pastoral Life
In September 1962, at the age of 17, D'Arcy became a novice at the Passionist monastery in Enniskillen. A year later he was transferred to Mount Argus in Dublin. He was ordained a priest in December 1969.
In his early years as a priest, D'Arcy became an unofficial chaplain to the showbusiness community in Dublin, visiting dancehalls seven nights a week and hearing confessions from musicians and fans alike. Such was his fame during this period that he reportedly became the inspiration for Dermot Morgan's character, Father Ted Crilly.
Father D'Arcy has publicly opposed the existing disciplinary norms regarding clerical celibacy and has sought the possibility to ordain married priests.
Concerns have been expressed by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about some aspects of Fr D'Arcy's writing; he was warned in April 2012 that he must now submit his writings and broadcasts to an official censor.
On 29 July 2012, Fr D'Arcy was a prominent speaker at a rally in County Cavan in support of the billionaire Quinn family, particularly Sean Quinn Jr and Peter Darragh Quinn, both of whom were convicted for being in contempt of an Irish High Court order not to hide €451 million they owed to the State by moving it out of the country. At the time of the rally Sean Quinn Jr. was serving a prison sentence, while his cousin Peter Darragh Quinn was a fugitive from justice, having fled the State (to Fr. D'Arcy's pastoral area of Enniskillen) to avoid imprisonment. Peter Quinn, who was convicted on evidence including a video-tape of him in the Ukraine detailing the crime, is still at large at this time.
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Famous quotes containing the words pastoral and/or life:
“Et in Arcadia ego.
[I too am in Arcadia.]”
—Anonymous, Anonymous.
Tomb inscription, appearing in classical paintings by Guercino and Poussin, among others. The words probably mean that even the most ideal earthly lives are mortal. Arcadia, a mountainous region in the central Peloponnese, Greece, was the rustic abode of Pan, depicted in literature and art as a land of innocence and ease, and was the title of Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral romance (1590)
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