Michael Courtney

Michael Aidan Courtney (5 February 1945 – 29 December 2003) was an Irish prelate of the Catholic Church. He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1980 and was given the rank of archbishop and named Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi in 2000.

He died from gunshot wounds sustained during a violent attack that was believed to be unrelated to Burundi's civil war. According to his brother, Courtney was the first papal nuncio to die as a result of violence in 500 years.

Biography Courtney was born in Summerhill, Nenagh, County Tipperary, He attended Clongowes Wood College and Clonfert Seminary. He initially considered following his father into medicine, but opted instead to study economics and law at University College Dublin.

He left UCD to enrol in the Irish College in Rome. He was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Clonfert on 9 March 1968.

He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See on 25 March 1980 and worked in nunciatures in South Africa, Senegal, India, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and Egypt. During his posting in Egypt, he supported the Vatican delegation at the 1994 UN population conference in Cairo. On 30 December 1995, he was appointed the Special Envoy and Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. He received episcopal ordination on 12 November 2000, at St Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh from Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, with Bishops John Kirby and William Walsh as co-consecrators. He was expecting a new assignment as nuncio to Cuba, where he had established a warm relationship with Fidel Castro. gunmen fired at his car near Minago, about south of the capital. He suffered gunshot wounds to the head, shoulder, and leg, and died from hemorrhaging during surgery at the Prince Louis Rwagasore Hospital in Bujumbura. Archbishop Simon Ntamwana blamed the militant Hutu National Liberation Forces (FNL), however the FNL, which had supported the November agreement, denied any responsibility and said Ntamwana should leave the country.

1,500 people attended a funeral Mass for Courtney in Burundi on 31 December.

Courtney was buried in Dromineer, on the shores of Lough Derg, County Tipperary, near his native Nenagh.