Blood of Irish martyr is seed of new Church order

The site of the martyrdom of St Oliver Plunkett has become the inspiration for the Church’s newest male religious order.

Columbian priests Fr Manuel Agudelo Marin, 52, and Fr Hector Nagles Santa, 53, became postulants of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre OSB, during a private ceremony in Grancey-le-Château, near Dijon, France.

The ceremony took place in a chapel in the childhood home of Mother Marie-Adèle Garnier, the founder of the so-called ‘Tyburn nuns’ whose mother house is located by Marble Arch at the site of the former Tyburn gallows where 105 beatified and canonised martyrs were killed between 1535 and 1681.

The two priests contacted the Tyburn Nuns in 2013 asking about founding an order of monks in association with the nuns, and their wish was granted after a document was discovered last year in Tyburn Convent in which Mother Marie-Adèle had laid out her vision for an order of Tyburn Monks.

St Oliver, the Archbishop of Armagh, was hanged, drawn and quartered at London’s Tyburn Gallows on July 1, 1681, after being falsely accused of conspiring to kill King Charles II.