A Waterford priest has listed four recent disruptive and disrespectful actions of self-described Catholics in Ireland who take public issue with Pope Francis or other church leaders, or with covid19 rules they disagree with – to the point of endangering or insulting presiding clergy or other Catholics.

Fr Liam Power calls for a ‘limit to appeasement’ of these ‘ultra Catholics’ – as their extreme views ‘serve to undermine the pontificate of Pope Francis’.

Fr Power points to:

• the deliberate crossing of a covid-prevention barrier in a local church by a person insistent on receiving communion on the tongue from the priest distributing communion to a different ‘pod’ of congregants – flouting all consideration for measures taken to keep all congregants safe and the church open for services;
• a similar scene in another church, upsetting a priest in poor health who had no option but to refuse a demand for communion on the tongue;
• an abusive protest at an Islamic service in Croke Park, totally devoid of respect for its ecumenical intent and for Archbishop Diarmuid Martin who had attended in full conformity with Catholic teaching;
• a ‘torrent of abuse’ hurled at Fr. Stephen Farragher, parish priest of Ballyhaunis – for his permission to two Muslim members of the local community to participate in closing prayers at a Sunday service.

Calling these actions ‘symptomatic of what is happening on a more global level’ Fr Power has called for a ‘limit to appeasement’ of those seemingly influenced by a ‘political and theological alignment between recalcitrant Catholics (together with white evangelicals) and Trumpian conservative politics in the United States’.

For Fr Power’s full article in the Waterford Star, click here.