History was made at the beginning of February when Archbishop Michael
Neary of Tuam appointed Mercy nun, Sr Mary Lyons, RSM, as Diocesan
Chancellor.
She is the first woman to hold such a position both in the
Irish Church and the Church in Britain.
As Chancellor, Sr Lyons' role will involve overseeing the canonical
structures in the Archdiocese of Tuam.
It also consists, among other
things, in issuing official documents, granting dispensations, providing
necessary indults and faculties, overseeing the application of the law,
and seeing to the preservation of documents in the diocesan archives.
Originally from Louisburgh, Co Mayo, Mary Lyons attended Mount Saint
Michael Secondary School in Claremorris before joining the Sisters of
Mercy in Tuam.
After graduating from the NUI Galway with a BA in Latin
and English and an HDip, she taught Latin and English in Scoil Bhríde in
Tuam.
In 1994, Sr Lyons was awarded JCL and MCL degrees in canon law by Saint Paul’s University and the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Teaching and working as a judge in the regional marriage tribunal in
Galway followed until in June 2000, Sr Lyons took early retirement to
pursue doctoral studies in canon law at Saint Paul’s University.
She
was awarded a PhD in October 2002 for her doctorate on the governance
and structures of the Mercy Congregation from its beginnings in the 19th
century to recent years.
In December 2002, Sr Lyons was appointed a judge/instructor in the
regional marriage tribunal in Galway by the late Bishop James
McLoughlin.
In addition to this work at the marriage tribunal, Sr Lyons
also served on diocesan commissions and as a canonical consultant to
religious congregations.
In December 2010, she retired from the marriage tribunal and was then appointed Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Tuam.
Over her career, Sr Lyons has sat on a number of different diocesan
committees and has been a canonical adviser to the Archdiocese of Tuam
and other dioceses, as well as to a number of religious congregations
both nationally and internationally on a range of canonical issues.
She
has done a lot of review work for various canonical magazines and
written numerous book reviews.
Her doctoral thesis, which was published as Governance Structures of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy: Becoming One,
is an historical and canonical study of how the governance structures
of the Mercy congregation evolved in response to ecclesiastical
legislation of the 19th and 20th centuries, and especially in response
to the Second Vatican Council’s mandate for adaptation and renewal.