Michael Patrick Cox, MA, OMD (born ), is an Irish independent bishop. and is also known for ordaining the singer Sinéad O'Connor. He is the founder and 'bishop superior' of the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Ministry
Michael Patrick Cox was ordained to the priesthood in Switzerland on 1 May 1978 as part of Order Mater Dei by Bishops Maurice "Hermenegildo" Revaz (Bishop Superior at the time), William "Rufino" Daly, Richard "Sixto" Corr, James Boyle and Ciaran "Bernardo" Broadbery.
Broadbery was consecrated in 1977 by Clemente Domínguez y Gómez of the Carmelites of the Holy Face (which would later become the Palmarian Catholic Church), who in turn was consecrated by Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục. In September 1976, Thục, and those he had ordained, were excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
Cox offered Tridentine Masses at Monkstown, Dublin, in the mid-1980s. However, the Catholic Media Office of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales later "said that it doubts that the bishop's episcopal consecration is valid".
In April 1999, Cox ordained female rock singer Sinéad O'Connor as a priest. Her ordination ceremony, after six weeks of theological study, was held in a Lourdes hotel bedroom. O'Connor then assumed the religious name of "Mother Bernadette Mary". This action is not considered valid within the Catholic church
At 'The Sacred Council' held at St Colman's Church in the townland of Cree near Birr, Co Offaly, 21–23 April 2000, Cox was elected 'Archbishop-Patriarch' of OMD for life and to hold a veto over the whole order of OMD. In 2004, Cox's trawler, called The Patriarch, caught fire while underway and sank.
In 2011, Cox was a candidate in the general election for the Laois–Offaly constituency, coming last with 60 votes. In 2013, a District Court judge requested that the Garda Síochána investigate a marriage conducted by Cox for a 17-year-old Traveller youth and his partner. Civil marriages in Ireland require that the participants are over 18, or have a Court Exemption Order if this is not the case. Cox states that such weddings conducted by him are religious, not civil, so there is no religious reason why somebody 16 years old should not get married.