Friday, April 11, 2014

Brendan Gleeson comments on ridiculing Irish priests

A story in this week's Irish Catholic quotes actor Brendan Gleeson as saying that Irish priests are 'derided to a ludicrous degree'.

Indeed, the actor makes a valid point but has there not been reason for the 'ridicule'?

Below is a column from the current Castlegregory parish newsletter. The 'I Spy' column is not signed but the newsletter is the bulletin of the Catholic parish of St Mary's and St Brendan's Castlegregory/Cloghane in West Kerry.

Over a two-year period the newsletter has been of poor taste and has insulted many people, including the current Minister for Education. It has poked fun at many groups in Irish society.

The column below, which appears in this week's parish newsletter, insults President Michael D Higgins.

I Spy Column….. 
Lizzie is in her second childhood. She lives in a big house. She has an imaginary friend, Michael D who also lives in a big house. He is a fairy, the king of the Irish fairies.  She invites him over to her house. “I shall play ‘tig’ with him”, she says. Her house is big. They wander for hours around it, upstairs, downstairs and Lizzie even shows Michael D her hiding places she used when playing hide-and-seek with the duke, who by the way, no longer plays. “He shall miss Eire”, she says to herself. “so to make him feel at home, we shall get a pony and trap.  Out in it, we shall share one handbag and in it we shall keep our sweets and things. I shall show him the electricity poles and I hope he wont be hurt, if I ask him, ‘Do you have electric light in Eire? We shall hold hands – he is a little bold, you know – and looking up at the clouds, he will say, ‘In Eire the clouds are dark and over here they are white and fluffy and I would love to sleep on one’. I will reply, ‘They are as delightful as the little tufts of hair that surround your ears’. He will squeeze my hand and boast, ‘I was once, tall, dark and handsome and If I met you in Salthill in the fifties, I would have wrapped you in a Galway shawl’. Lizzie dreams on. “In the evening, I shall share with him, a colouring book.  It has four fields in it. We shall have a race.  I shall give him a green pencil and let him win, it will make him happy. I shall ask him to recite ‘Humpty Dumpty’. It will make me sleepy. It is so nice to stay up past my usual bed time…….and I do have so few friends, these days.


The story featured in the national media, The Star, The Irish Independent and The Irish Sun. It was the lead story on the front page of The Kerryman, North and West Kerry edition. It appeared in all editions of The Kerryman. Radio Kerry gave it prominence. It also featured on the review of the provinical newspapers this afternoon on RTE One's Drivetime. The digital news provider 'Broadsheet' also gave it mention.

In response to requests from media outlets, the Catholic diocese of Kerry issued the press release below.

"In relation to parish newsletters, the diocese leaves the design and content of each newsletter to the individual parish. The gathering of information, the typing and the printing of the newsletter is a considerable piece of weekly work for a parish. The aim of the parish newsletter is to communicate Mass times, deaths, church notices and parish activities to parishioners.  More than half of the parishes have their newsletter up on the diocesan website.  Many parish newsletters make a distinction between parish news and community news. Humour can be a wonderful addition to communication but the priority of the diocese is to spread the Good News and not to cause any offence in this process."

The newsletters can be viewed at www.castlegregory.myparish.eu.

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