EWTN portal reports that Bishop Alan McGuckian, SJ, of Down and Connor, celebrated a Mass in Belfast following a coroner’s inquest that found five Catholics—including Father Noel Fitzpatrick—were “unlawfully killed” by British soldiers in 1972. The bishop praised the verdict as restoring “dignity” and bringing “a measure of justice,” while commending the victims’ families for their perseverance. This entire narrative, however, operates within a framework of naturalistic justice that completely ignores the supernatural order, the true nature of martyrdom, and the subversive role of the conciliar hierarchy in perpetuating a revolutionary narrative under the guise of “peace” and “reconciliation.”
The Coroner’s Verdict vs. The Judgment of God
The Belfast High Court Judge David Scoffield, sitting as a coroner, declared that the British soldiers “lost control” and used “unreasonable and unjustified” force. The victims—Father Noel Fitzpatrick, Patrick Butler, John Dougal (16), David McCafferty (15), and Margaret Gargan (13)—were deemed unarmed and posing no threat. The coroner stated: “there may have been some ‘sporadic’ firing by the IRA, but those killed were unarmed, posed no threat, and should not have been killed.”
From a purely naturalistic, human rights perspective, this verdict may appear just. But Catholic theology before 1958 teaches that true justice is not determined by human tribunals but by the eternal law of God. The Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemns the notion that “moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction” (Proposition 56) and that “authority is nothing else but numbers and the sum total of material forces” (Proposition 60). Here, the “justice” proclaimed by Bishop McGuckian is entirely stripped of its supernatural foundation. It is a justice of this world, serving earthly political ends, while the souls of the deceased—and the living—are abandoned to the mercy of a God whose judgment is never consulted.
The Omission of Martyrdom and the State of Grace
The most glaring omission in this entire narrative is the complete silence regarding martyrdom. Father Noel Fitzpatrick was a priest exercising his pastoral ministry, going to the assistance of others. Father Hugh Mullan, killed in the Ballymurphy massacre in 1971, was shot while carrying a white cloth, praying as he lay dying, having telephoned the British Army to notify them he was going to assist a wounded man. These are precisely the circumstances that, in the pre-conciliar Church, would have prompted an immediate investigation into whether these priests died in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith) or at least in the heroic exercise of charity.
Yet Bishop McGuckian, SJ, says nothing of martyrdom. He speaks of “dignity” and “justice” but never of sanctity. He praises the “perseverance, resilience, and persistence of the victims’ families” but never exhorts them to pray for the souls of the deceased or to seek their intercession if they are in heaven. This is the hallmark of the conciliar sect: the reduction of all things to the natural order, the erasure of the supernatural, and the substitution of political activism for true spiritual consolation.
The conciliar hierarchy’s refusal to investigate or promote the cause of these priests as potential martyrs is not accidental. It is symptomatic of the modernist apostasy condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), where the modernists “empty the priesthood of its meaning” and reduce the Church to a purely human institution. A true bishop would have opened a canonical inquiry into the deaths of these priests. McGuckian, SJ, merely offers platitudes about “walking together in the light of truth and justice”—a phrase that echoes the language of secular human rights discourse, not the Gospel.
The IRA Connection and the Complicity of Silence
The inquest revealed that David McCafferty was a member of the junior wing of the Official IRA, and John Dougal was an acknowledged member of Na Fianna, the juvenile wing of the Provisional IRA. The coroner found “suspicious activity” in the area but could not determine whether Dougal was armed. Margaret Gargan, 13, was “wholly innocent,” standing talking to friends when she was “shot directly in the face.”
The conciliar hierarchy’s silence on the IRA’s role in provoking the violence is deafening. The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland were not merely a conflict between British soldiers and innocent Catholics; they were a complex civil war in which the IRA used civilians as shields, recruited children as soldiers, and deliberately created situations where British overreaction could be exploited for propaganda. The Springhill/Westrock shooting occurred at a time when an IRA ceasefire had just broken down. The British Army claimed it was engaged in a sustained gun battle. The coroner acknowledged “sporadic” firing by the IRA.
Yet Bishop McGuckian, SJ, presents the victims as entirely passive, as though they were merely innocent bystanders caught in crossfire. This is a deliberate distortion of reality designed to serve the narrative of British victimization of Catholics—a narrative that the conciliar sect has exploited for decades to undermine the authority of the British state and to promote its own agenda of “peace” and “reconciliation” that is, in reality, a capitulation to revolutionary forces.
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), taught that “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men” and that Christ’s kingship extends over all nations, demanding that rulers govern according to God’s commandments. The conciliar hierarchy, by contrast, promotes a false peace that ignores the demands of divine justice and the reality of sin. The IRA’s violence was not merely a political act; it was a mortal sin, a violation of the Fifth Commandment, and an offense against the common good. By remaining silent on this, McGuckian, SJ, becomes complicit in the sin.
The “Heroic Virtue” of Priests in a Church Without Doctrine
Father Conor McGrath, the Down and Connor Diocesan Vocations Director, pointed to the example of Fitzpatrick and Mullan as men of “heroic virtue.” This phrase is loaded with theological significance. In the pre-conciliar Church, “heroic virtue” is the canonical standard for beatification and canonization. It requires a rigorous examination of the candidate’s life, writings, and the circumstances of their death.
But in the conciliar sect, “heroic virtue” has been emptied of its doctrinal content and reduced to a vague sentiment of admiration for those who suffer. McGrath does not call for a canonical inquiry. He does not urge the faithful to pray for the canonization of these priests. He merely holds them up as examples of “priestly ministry”—as though the mere fact of being a priest and dying violently is sufficient to constitute sanctity.
This is precisely the error condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), where the modernists are condemned for teaching that “the dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (Proposition 22). Here, the “heroic virtue” of Fitzpatrick and Mullan is not a theological reality but a human interpretation, a narrative constructed to serve the conciliar agenda of promoting “vocations” without demanding the rigorous ascetical and doctrinal formation that the pre-conciliar Church required.
The Legacy Act and the Suppression of Truth
The inquest was completed in 2024, just before the British government’s controversial Legacy Act shut down inquests in Troubles-related killings. The coroner noted that “there is little prospect of any prosecution in these cases” due to the passage of time and the difficulty of establishing the identity of the soldiers.
The Legacy Act is a political instrument designed to bury the past, to prevent further investigation into the crimes of both the British Army and the IRA. It is a law of oblivion, a legal mechanism for suppressing truth in the name of “moving on.” The conciliar hierarchy, which has spent decades promoting “reconciliation” in Northern Ireland, has no comment on this act of injustice. It does not protest the suppression of truth. It does not demand that the British government fulfill its duty to investigate and prosecute crimes.
This silence is consistent with the conciliar sect’s broader agenda of suppressing truth in favor of “peace.” The false ecumenism and religious indifferentism promoted by the Second Vatican Council have led the conciliar hierarchy to prioritize “dialogue” and “reconciliation” over the demands of justice. Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). The conciliar hierarchy’s complicity with the Legacy Act is a perfect illustration of this condemned proposition.
The Spiritual Ruin of the Faithful
The Mass celebrated by Bishop McGuckian, SJ, on May 3, 2026, was not a true Mass in the sense of the Traditional Roman Rite. It was a Novus Ordo Missae, a Protestantized liturgy that the pre-conciliar Church would have recognized as invalid or, at best, gravely deficient in its expression of the propitiatory sacrifice. The faithful who attended this Mass were not offered the true Body and Blood of Christ in the manner that the Church has always understood and practiced. They were offered a simulacrum, a ritual that has been stripped of its supernatural efficacy and reduced to a communal meal.
The “Communion” distributed at this Mass was not the Eucharist as the Church has always defined it. It was a symbol, a token of unity that has no power to sanctify or to remit sin. The faithful who received it were, in effect, participating in a sacrilege—not because they intended to, but because the conciliar hierarchy has deprived them of the true sacraments.
This is the ultimate tragedy of the Springhill/Westrock narrative. The priests who died—Fitzpatrick and Mullan—were ordained in the true priesthood, before the conciliar revolution destroyed the rite of Holy Orders. They exercised a true ministry. They offered true Masses. They absolved sins with true authority. But the faithful they served have been abandoned by the conciliar hierarchy, left to wander in a spiritual wasteland where the sacraments are corrupted, the doctrine is obscured, and the supernatural is denied.
Conclusion: The Call to True Justice
The Springhill/Westrock inquest and the response of the conciliar hierarchy reveal the bankruptcy of the post-conciliar Church. The “justice” proclaimed by Bishop McGuckian, SJ, is a justice of this world, stripped of its supernatural foundation. The “heroic virtue” praised by Father McGrath is a human construct, emptied of its theological content. The “reconciliation” promoted by the conciliar sect is a false peace that ignores the demands of divine justice and the reality of sin.
True justice requires the recognition of God’s sovereignty over all nations and all human affairs. It requires the acknowledgment that the British soldiers who killed these innocent people committed a mortal sin, and that the IRA members who provoked the violence also sinned grievously. It requires the faithful to pray for the souls of all the deceased—British soldiers and IRA members alike—and to seek the intercession of the saints, including, if God wills, the intercession of Father Noel Fitzpatrick and Father Hugh Mullan.
But the conciliar hierarchy will never do this. It is a structure built on the ruins of the true Church, a counterfeit institution that serves the interests of the world rather than the Kingdom of God. The faithful must reject its false justice, its corrupted sacraments, and its naturalistic theology. They must return to the immutable Tradition of the Church, to the true Mass, to the true sacraments, and to the true doctrine that has been handed down from the Apostles.
Only then will the Springhill martyrs receive the honor they deserve—not the empty praise of a bishop who serves the revolution, but the eternal glory of those who laid down their lives in the service of Christ and His Church.
Source:
Inquest finds priest and 4 Catholic civilians shot by British troops ‘unlawfully killed’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 14.05.2026