Priest speaks terrible words from pulpit

Since this blog first went live it has tried to be 'cheeky' at times irreverent and certainly questioning of the institutional church.

It has a healthy readership. People from time to time make comments. Some are positive, some are negative and the really nasty and abusive ones are not published. The anonymous comments still keep coming.

Just an introduction for this entry.

It is a cold wet day in Dublin. Hard to believe it is summer. I cycled to Rathfarnham church in south Dublin to attend 4.30pm Mass. Afraid to leave the bicycle outside, so I brought it in and left it at the back of the church - on the advice of a parishioner.

The priest began Mass. He had sympathetic voice and sounded like a 'nice man.

He began his sermon saying that he had preached earlier in the day and felt the Holy Spirit was urging him to say it again.

He recalled how last Thursday was a terrible day for him - the media rolled out its usual people to condemn the church. He went on to say that the Irish Government was about to treat priests as they had been treated in penal times.

He said ony two per cent of priests were abusers.

Had the bike not been at the back it would have been easy to slip out but it would have been wrong of me to have stayed listening to this man any longer, so I simply went over to my bike, unlocked it and left the church.

Of course the Government was silly to introduce the seal of confession issue - all it did and does is give an excuse to such priests.

What to do?

Maybe we should be celebrating if all this means the demise of the current clerical institutional church.