Michael Courtney

Michael Courtney (February 5th 1945 Nenagh, county of Tipperary, area of Munster, Ireland - December 29th 2003 Minago Burundi), Irish archbishop, Apostolic nuncio with the Burundi, (i.e ambassador of the the Holy See) was mortally wounded in a ambush with Minago (to 40 km in the south of the capital) the December 29th 2003.

The Burundian army allotted this attack to the rebels of the National liberation armies (FNL), which denied to have tightened this ambush and to have rejected the responsibility on the regular army.

December 2006: According to the South-African catholic weekly magazine The Southern Cross-country race , the death of Mgr Courtney would have been " planned of in haut" , blaming the former Burundian president Pierre Buyoya.

Ordered priest in 1968, it had started by being cleaned of parish in its native area, before turning over to Rome in 1976 for higher learning, obtaining a License in Canonical Right and a Doctorate in Moral Theology. It is then that it entered to the Diplomatic Academy of Pontificate, student, inter alia, Political sciences, the Diplomatic and International Right…

Mgr Courtney had been named apostolic nuncio with Bujumbura (Burundi) in August 2000. Previously, it had been to advise with nonciature in Egypt, in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, in Senegal, in India and in Cuba, before being then special correspondent and permanent observer of the Holy See near the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (of 1996 to 2000), also seat of the European Court of the human rights whose judgments and jurisprudence are followed by the Mission of the Holy See with an special attention.

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