Nenagh Parish Priest Fr Des Hillery has been appointed by Bishop Fintan Monahan as the Vicar General of the Diocese of Killaloe.
A native of Miltown Malbay, Hillery served as the Diocesan Administrator from February 2015 up until the appointment of Monahan as the Bishop of Killaloe in September of this year.
Fr Hillery was educated at St Flannan’s College, Ennis and St Patrick’s College Maynooth. During the beginning of the 1980s he completed a higher diploma education at UCC before beginning a teaching career in Farranferris.
In 1986 he returned to his home county and was a member of staff at St Flannan’s College for eight years when he was appointed to the formation staff of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Hillery worked as a missionary from 2006 to 2012 and has served as the Parish Priest of Nenagh since returning from Lima in Peru.
According to the Code of Canon Law; the Diocesan Bishop is to appoint a Vicar General to assist him in the governance of the whole Diocese. The Vicar General has the same executive power throughout the whole diocese as that which belongs by law to the diocesan Bishop: that is, he can perform all administrative acts, with the exception however of those which the Bishop has reserved to himself, or which by law require a special mandate of the Bishop.