WHY IS POPE FRANCIS PULLING HIS HAND AWAY FROM PILGRIMS WHO WANT TO KISS HIS RING?
Is it because he is getting fed up of people?
Is it because at heart he is nasty and mean?
Is it because he has arthritis and his hand is sore?
Is it because he is beginning to suffer from dementia or a mental disorder?
Or is it because he wants to de-mystify the papacy and point to the pope as a servant and not a master?
One thing is sure – his actions are confusing and hurting people and an explanation is needed from Francis himself.
Kissing the pope’s ring (and in the past bishop’s) is a very old custom.
In fact, here in Rome this week, I have had my ring kissed several times. I normally respond by kissing the hands of those who kiss mine – to show mutual affection and respect.
This in is line with Christian teaching that each human being we meet is an alter Christus – another Christ.
If Francis does not want people to kiss his ring he should a public announcement about it and give his reasons.
Or, if he feels that strong about it, he could stop wearing a ring altogether.
DERRY DEACON REPRIMANDED AFTER INSULTING ANGLICAN HOLY ORDERS
A DERRY BLOG READER WRITES
Dear Bishop Buckley
I emailed you last week about Derry Deacon Declan McGeehan’s comment on Twitter about his view that Anglican priests were “null and void”. He reposted a tweet by the Archbishop of Canterbury who celebrated 25 years of ordination of women to priesthood, and Deacon McGeehan tweeted that Pope Leo XIII was right, Anglican orders are null and void.
I sent an email to the Bishop of Derry, Bishop Donal McKeown saying I saw the tweet and I gave him my concerns over these types of comments, especially since Bishop McKeown and Father Paul Farren have a close friendship with the Church of Ireland Archdeacon Robert Miller. Father Farren even co-wrote a book with Arcdeacon Miller.
Bishop Donal McKeown replied to me, thanking me for pointing this out and that he would take this matter further.
Well today I see Deacon McGeehan’s Twitter account is no more. It is gone, wiped. “Null and void” I will use the term.
DEAR READER,
Thank you for your email and the information you provide.
It was very fundamentalist and non-ecumenical for the deacon to be insulting another church’s business and reputation.
You were quite right to complain to the bishop.
If McGeehan thinks like that, it raises questions about his suitability for ordination.
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 
94 replies on “POPE FRANIS PULLS HAND AWAY FROM PILGRIMS.”
eczema? scabies?
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Can’t bless himself, can’t kneel, now won’t let papal seal be honoured. Communist and mason.
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8.28: Early morning silly, nonsensical comment. Go back to bed. A great forward thinking move by Pope Francis.
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Wise up!
He has already been snapped the next day or so letting an elderly nun kiss it! Forward thinking my arse. Didn’t like the bad publicity lol! Principled? You’re deluding yourself. The guy’s a charlatan.
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@10.08
Just watched pictures/video of the old B sitting on a throne letting a naked man in a loin cloth/toga costume kneel before him and kiss his hand. So progressive. Just watched HIM kiss the hand of a homo heretical priest. Just watched him kiss the hand of a Jew I.e. a non believer in Christ’s Divinity.
Seems kissing suits him sometimes.
As I said before: communist and mason.
If you ever come across any evidence to the contrary, let me know.
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Right-wing reaction at 8.28. You are out of step with the most popular pontificate in history. American I assume. The slurs you selected were the closest to hand.
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@ 3.19
“The most popular pontificate in history,” Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha……… excuse me while I go change my wet underwear……………Unfortunately even hallucinations are more easily treated with medication than delusions- which can’t be so remedied.
“The most popular pontificate in history,” – dear, oh dear,oh dear………..
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Bp Pat, I read one the pope’s aides said, on condition of anonymity, “he sometimes likes his ring kissed, and other times he doesn’t.”
He seems a bit erratic, but it could be the side-effects of any medication he may be on.
I wonder how this change will impact Amy and Elsie as I am sure they derive a great of pleasure from having their rings kissed.
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At 8.28 a.m.
One may only guess at the medication you are on.
Vivat Franciscus, pastor et pontifex. Laudetur Jesus Christus.
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Except that the old fraud didn’t say the customary Laudetur Jesus Christus when he first appeared on the balcony but instead said good evening.
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Every fiber of his being calls for Jesus Christ to be praised. Actions over words. Surprising the vitriol stimulated in some people by the way they react to him.
Long live HF Francis!
Praised be Jesus Christ!
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Pope Francis is simply trying to demystify his Papacy. He doesn’t want this custom to continue. Quite rightly and there’s no other complicated reason. I admire him in his efforts to be seen as a servant, not a master. He did request that people just receive his blessing..Also it’s time consuming and may also be a health and safety issue. Let’s not attribute silly, sinister, crazy theories to his request not to have people kiss the papal ring. As for Pat letting people kiss his ring….well that tells it’s own story about him. An unhygienic custom and the attitude of a lord master…crazy.
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Pope Francis is a good age and apart from this fact, he wants his role to be seen as a servant not that as a celebrity. It’s time to ditch the custom. God bless our Holy Father, Pope Francis. Leading by example.
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Why are all his acts of humility filmed?
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To give good example to people like you.
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Deacon McGeehan sounds a right little madam if you ask me, Bp Pat.
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Hello Sean Fitz, how are you girls?
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8:45
Ahh! But McGeehan will make an excellent priest. Just what the Church is looking for these days. Men like Sean ‘Puck’ Jones, Byrne, etc.😆
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What on earth are you insinuating?
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Begorra that wee deacon hi. Said what allot of people think Maybe some on here but. Let’s hope all get the message Nobody owns Jesus hi. Viva la revolution yahoo hi
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You sound like an Anglican
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Pat Mullaney gave a sermon this morning and said we must be open to ecumenism with Kenny Hall.
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The lesser story here is Francis being reluctant to have his ring kissed. I think he’s right. It’s a demeaning and hierarchic gesture that has had its day, especially as we hopefully move towards a more humble and less clericalist Church and clergy.
The more important story today is this young transitory deacon. He should be sent off to redo his course on ecumenism for a while. But, I am not surprised. So often one comes across seminarians and young priests who think, act, and live like they have returned to the traditionalist, rigourist days of the Church, with authoritarian attitudes and views. it is dispiriting to see. They appear to have inordinate interests in orthodoxy for the sake of it, and for how they dress, both liturgically and everyday. Gammarelli, Barbican, with special shopping trips to Rome to get the right gear ! Hopefully, + McKeon will have this young man in and give him a taste of reality. Perhaps send him off to lose a bit of weight as well, because for a young man he does look at bit podgy, although I guess he has a couple of de rigeur liturgical bits and pieces under his alb. When I was his age I was as fit as a butcher’s dog and a thin as whip.
In some ways, the two stories are connected, I suppose. I guess that this young deacon and others like him will be despairing of a Pope who does not relish outdated Papal ring kissing, and Pope Francis would probably despair of deacons like this young man and such views as his ilk seem to be resurrecting.
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Its funny how Pope Francis (mccarrick cover up merchant) and McKeown who has never been discussed favorably on this blog now become the good guys when a deacon states a theological statement from a pope in the 19th century. I will share a video with this blog later which sheds more light on the francis event.
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@ 9.03
Don’t show reverence to the papal office of Peter, but keep quiet while I, as pope almighty, dismiss staff from the CDF etc without a day’s notice and forbid American bishops doing anything substantial about abuse in between changing the catechism all by my sweet self. I’m so humble. No, actually I’m a power hungry megalomaniac, in fact – I’m the Dictator Pope and I humiliate people anytime I bloody well feel like it! So there, peasant!
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An American troll commentator too I take it.
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9;)3 One presumes your misinterpretation is deliberate. It’s not reverence per se which he is objecting to. It’s the style of medieval (in the worse sense) princes to which he objects. He’s a pastor not an emperor.
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12:14
Your comments about HF Francis’ action towards US bishops was premature. See today’s declaration on the Vatican website.
http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2019/03/29/0263/00539.html
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Well said! 9:03.
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@ 3.29
An ostrich who came through sodomitical Men-nooth, I take it.
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@ 6.31
But he engages in this very ”medieval’ practice himself! So Tommyrot.
He practically wrestled the head of an Orthodox Church to the ground to get medievally kissing HIS ring!
You do spout some drivel! His spokesperson came out today and said it was ‘hygiene’. Yet your story straight!
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There’s no such title and no such person. 8.04 p.m.
You are referring to the Ecumenical Patriarch.
No inconsistency on Francis’ part at all. Just development of doctrine and discipline/practice.
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The Pope looks like he’s fond of the pasta and red wine. A lack of prayer and fasting? Age is no excuse – plenty of older people aren’t overweight.
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8.23
A lack of prayer?
A slur of the worst kind. An offence against the Holy Spirit.
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In this day of enlightened medical knowledge….I never kiss the cross on Ash Wednesday.
Men are very very bad at washing their hands.
Needless to say I wd never want hand kissed
All that saliva on the popes hand…..erughhhhhh
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@ 10.05
Wasn’t Jesus the thicko to be touching them leppers! And as for letting all those unwashed peasants crowd around him so closely, paw at Him and touch His garments, Euughh! Allowing dirty children near Him and not insisting His disciples scrupulously wash! He must have been a right dirty midden. It’s good we are so enlightened today that we don’t kiss Good Friday crosses; now urinating on other men, penises in mouths, digitally probing anuses and inserting sexual organs where the poop comes out – well, that’s all so hygienic. What could possibly go wrong compared to kissing a crucifix on Good Friday?
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Jesus was god 1.01.the pope is a mere mortal
Please try to keep up…god is not here as a man anymore.
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I certainly think the Pope and Bishops should dress down, and get rid of skull caps and cummerbunds, but giving or receiving a kiss is something else, and I think it churlish and disrespectful to refuse. I remember years ago meeting Basil Hume and went to kiss his ring believing that was the appropriate thing to do. He made me feel a bit of a fool by twisting his hand away. He was a shit. Never tried it with Elsie – anybody got experience? – but Longley was perfectly nice about and I felt respect was both given and received. Far more worried about the deacon who seems typical of the porky prat we recruitthese days. I bet there is more to him! Do tell!
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“Do Tell”: forensic examination leads me to believe the following: Hello Brendan and Stephen how are you girls?
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Is Deacon Declan a friend of Brendan and Stephen, or just of Dorothy?
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Stephen Wilson likes upsey.
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@ 8.43
But He was negligent about His followers washing their hands, and they weren’t God. BTW that particular discussion was about people being too squeamish to engage in adoration of the cross, so keep up!
A bit of advice if you believe in God, to show it is a personal noun we give the word a capital letter. The fact you don’t indicates that you are not a believer, so why are you saying “Jesus was god” when you don’t believe in God? Also, Jesus IS God. He is alive. You seem more than a little muddled.
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9.12
Now aren’t you so well educated, did us laity contribute?
During Jesus time on Earth he was god, he doesn’t walk the earth anymore.
The point is, which you seem to have missed, is that Frankie boy is not god.
After I grew up I decided to be careful as to who or what I would put my lips near.
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Is Declan Mc Geehan not merely expressing his view? The problem with the clerical church is that priests are expected to agree with everything the official Church says. Well done to young Mc Geehan for being honest with his own personal thoughts and opinion.
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I follow Rev. Mcgeehan on Twitter. His tweet was a response to another tweet which called for women priests in the Catholic church. It wasn’t a random attack on Anglicans. Context!
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Pat your blog today will put all the normal people off joining the priesthood, normal Catholic men hate gays and huns. When I was in seminary all the fags loved the huns especially anglicans because of their views on sodomites.
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Judging by the level of irrational bile, homophobia and anger, it’s clear you didn’t stay long enough to have some of your many personality problems and disorders identified or successfully addressed.
If you believe normal Catholic men hate gays, I suspect you hate yourself, when in fact God loves you as you are.
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Declan’s nickname in Maynooth was “Queen McGeehan”. That says it all really.
Pat is this the same man who “allegedly” had Grindr account in Rome that you wrote about this year? Why was he sent home to Ireland as a Deacon and not ordained a priest?
Something is being covered up Pat! Look into it.
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That deacon needs to go on a diet pronto!
How does his lifestyle reflect the poverty of the priesthood? Overweight priests like him who cannot control their food intake are not suitable for minsitry. He is not witnessing to the life of Jesus. He is a glutton by the looks of it. Too much pasta and wine judging by the big red face.
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People are too quick to judge others by appearance and it says something about their own lives. Just because someone is overweight doesn’t mean they necessarily over indulge. I know this from my nursing days that steroids and other medication, a person’s metabolism are all factors. I think this is cruel to fat shame someone and is a form of nasty bullying. To allow this to be printed is shameful.
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2:54
Oh, it does usually mean that someone is fat because he overeats. Not always, but usually.
I recall a lovely scene in AJ Cronin’s, ‘The Keys of the Kingdom’, in which the missionary priest, when backhome, advises a grossly obese woman who had come to him for confession to ‘eat less, because the gates of paradise are narrow’.
His senior later chides him for his honesty, foolishly attempting to explain away the woman’s gluttony as ‘glandular’-related.
What baloney! Not only to what the senior priest here tried to do, but to what you, also, are trying to do.
Isn’t it typical of Roman Catholic clergy that they make excuses for themselves (or stand back, happy to let others, like you, do it for them) when they self-indulge to the point of moral selfishness, ‘sin’, in another word? It was done for those priests who raped and sodomised children: Oh! Poor Father is sick; he needs help! It was why Father Gerald Fitzgerald founded the Servants of the Paraclete, to help priests with addictions, including those who sexually assualted children. Even he, idealist that he was, had to awaken to the grounding fact that these men abused not because they were addicted, but because they were evil.
Stop making excuses for the sins of Roman Catholic priests!
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Many Americans are grossly overweight from eating super size portions.
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Typical of this blog. Pat thinks it’s morally and ethically justifiable to leave others open to denigration, abuse, judgment and vile personal venom. The reference to the Deacon and what he said is not an issue for tearing apart. Then, some abusers, clerics mostly, make reference to his weight. Disgusting, immoral, none of their business, fat shaming…jeering and ridiculing him. Pat, that you allow this online bullying and abuse is reflective of your own crass bullying, ignorance and your willingness to harrass this Deacon. Ugly and unacceptable. You are shameless along with the other nasty abusers on your blog. Do you ever think about the consequences of allowing others use your blog to belittle, devalue, mock and bully others? Were this to happen in a workplace, none of you bullies would get away with it. Then, Pat doesn’t work in a real “workplace” environment, so…….!!
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3:50
Of course McGeehan’s tweet should have been challenged! It was as grossly disrespectful as it was untrue. Thoroughly unchristian. And it displays ignorance of Scripture, just as Leo XIII’s now stale dismissal did. But, predictably, it is the kind of-off-the-cuff, brainless comment that I should expect from clerics who are more pharasaical than have spiritually infused nous.
When Jesus instructed his followers at the Last Supper to do as he was doing at that very moment (‘Do this in memory of me.’), he made no pre-condition: their was no caveat that Roman Catholic ordination was first required.
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The Archbishops Of England reminded Pope Pecci that his own orders would be found lacking if he subjected ancient Roman ordination uses to the same standard as he did to the Anglicans, and they did so in much more gorgeous Latin than that found in Apostolicae Curae.
Obviously the rev’d deacon is nescient of the Old Catholic infusions into modern Anglican consecrations. Latin protocols exist online attesting to the Utrecht bishops involvement. ++Mathew’s Prince was involved in Hiram Hulse’s consecration in Cuba, and mirabile dictu, his lines have somehow affected most American Episcopalian consecrations.
For good measure based on personal experience I must say that the Orthodox really deep down believe that Roman lines lack grace. Oh, they’ll have a bowl of pasta with the Latins but they really prefer octopus and potatoes amongst themselves.
Mutatis mutandis, deacons who worship in glass churches ought not to cast stones.
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Well said Seraphim – and with some gentle humour you make your points eloquently. Btw it’s said that Pope Pecci never one addressed his footman in 25 years.
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Bp Pat, Pope Francis has addressed the mystery of why he withdrew his hand from ring-kissing, explaining it was a “simple question of hygiene”. He was said to be “amused” by the controversy, a papal aide aka pulpit poove told Reuters news agency.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47736614
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@ 4.39
Lie. There are too, too many photos and videos of him letting other heathens do it and of him kissing other’s hands as well.
Hygiene?
Alright for a semi-naked young male to kiss it but not the faithful of Loreto? Humbug and lies!
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@ 4.39
I read it. What it says basically is that after a while he got pissed off with having to stand there and chose to act like a d**k. Nice one, francis!
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You couldn’t care less about Francis so I don’t see why You are so worried about him.
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His rather extreme reaction suggests he may have caught something, Bp Pat, an infectious disease transmitted from person to person by direct contact, and the experience has put him off ring-kissing. Do you think Amy or Elsie will attempt to kiss his ring in future? I wonder.
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@ 5.18
Did he catch it all of a sudden, 15 mins in to the line-up?
Yeah, I know what he caught – the ” I can’t be arsed with all these plebs” disease.
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@5.55
I’m not worried about him. I worry for a Church leading people astray into sin and away from God’s ways for us.
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@ 4.39
So all the intellectual commentators on here today telling us all it was some great intentional, progressive policy have been shown to be – full of hot air. Complementing the emperor on his outfit and pretending he’s not naked. Just shows how they will say ANYTHING to ‘prove’ that he’s right and wonderful.
Everyone else is an American reactionary. Excuses, excuses, excuses.
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You can’t tell the difference between compliment and complement but you have what it takes to be an internet troll.
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Hi Jean is that what tis. Well there’s allot more germs not to pull thand away from but take mop and bucket to. Yr still a Deacon Papafranco so hi
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I can confirm this is the best video on the hand kissing. https://youtu.be/IAhnAw94P2M
Prepare for snowflake magna to be outraged, or maybe the Derry snowflake who loves huns.
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@ 5.08
He hates Catholics. Plain and simple. Unless you’re a Mc Carrick or a Chilean Cardinal, or another Chilean Cardinal – oh, that’s right -he hates practising Catholics. I wonder how is friend Emma Bonino is doing now.
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The section of that papal video doing the rounds is a little bit misleading. Before hand (no pun intended) the pope did allow people to kiss his ring but got fed up looking at the lengthy of the queue. So he allowed some to kiss the ring and then acted like the remaining people had the plague, perhaps in a desire to hurry things along. As any priest will know nothing gets up people’s backs as treating people differently and seemingly showing special treatment to some.
Pope Francis does seem to be moody and prone to bad temper at times too. People who meet him in the absence of a camera say he can be quite cold and distant. He also said Mass in Loreto without any concelebrants and shock horror – with his back to the People!!!! 🤤
As far as I am aware that Derry deacon only repeated what is still catholic doctrine. It may be non PC and harsh sounding but it is the main reason why Anglican clergy are ordained using catholic rites if they convert to Catholicism. I would hope Bishop mc Keown will have the fatherly concern not to throw his deacon to the wolves as some here seem to advocate.
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I wouldn’t exactly call Brendan a wolf. More like a panda bear.
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@ 5.17
“In the absence of a camera.” What more do you need to know?
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5:17
As far as you’re aware, McGheenan only repeated Catholic doctrine on Anglican priestly orders? So what? Catholic doctrine is often built on the shifting sand of human arbitrariness and stupidity, like Pope Leo XIII’s ‘teaching’.
Oh! And like that old chestnut, centuries stale, that the death penalty was morally permissible.
The Romanists are nothing if not, er, unreliable on second-guessing God’s will. 😆
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Not the death penalty again. 💤💤💤
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4.22: What an idiotic comment. Your insulting reference to someone’s weight is simply ill informed and ignorant. No one is excusing gluttony or abuse. Your analysis is simplistic. Guess you are the Adonis type! More a gobshite…..and a plonker.
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Declan The Queen McGeehan bullied many people in Maynooth and Rome. His arrogant tweet is indicative of someone who is immature and unsuitable for priestly ordination. If he is acting with such disdain and malice as a deacon what will he be like as a priest?
Many complaints have been made about this man to seminary officials and his bishop. I can assure your readers of his unsuitability +Pat. He has struggled to be pastoral with parishioners. He made ugly comments about single mothers, abortion and gay people which is hypocritical given that he has skeletons in his own “closet”. He was deemed unsuitable in Maynooth and was shipped off to Rome where he was further deemed unsuitable hense why he is back here in Derry.
When will the Church learn +Pat?
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Pat why do you publish these defamatory statements? “JamesDerry” is a lying coward. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that he was the same individual who created the fake Grindr account last year to try to destroy this man’s good name. Shame on you Pat!
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He went to Rome because he asked to go there as maynooth is shite as can be attested by the recently ordained. He left Rome because his course was completed. What’s wrong with bullying people?
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The homoclericalists are out in force today as they see an opportunity to destroy the reputation of a deacon who openly opposed their immoral, duplicitous lives.
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He was asked to go to Rome when Collins said Maynooth would not take him back until he took time out to focus on pastoral work.
Collins did a good job in your case.
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JamesDerry at 6.24: You are known by many of us by your words and sentiments. You are a class bitch, prone to embellishing stories to destroy others. What is it about people like you – jealous, immature, infantile trouble makers!
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Thank you James Derry @ 6: 24: exactly what I had surmised. And why should Maynooth be shite given it is attached to a mainstream Irish university? How much does @ 6:55 think these Roman degrees, at best replicating notes parrot-fashion, are worth? At Allen Hall types such as Mark Langham could have done a London University degree at Heythrop, but, no, they couldn’t wait to get to Rome. Why, I wonder?
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JamesDerry you are a liar.
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6:37
Hi Declan. It boggles the mind that you are defending your tweets on this blog today. Can you not see the error of your ways or is that holier than thou arrogance of yours getting in the way? I can picture the conversation you had with your Bishop “Blah Blah Blah Church tradition says this, Church tradtion says that; i did nothing wrong”. If my comments today are lies prove me wrong. Enjoy the extra year out….
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JamesDerry I know your real name
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I bet you know Magna’s real name too
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7:30
Of course he does!
It’s ‘Magna’.😆
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grand stretch in the evenings
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Aye! There is that, lad. (Puffs on his claypipe while looking wistfully seaward)
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4.22: Magna, we know that abusers, whoever they may be, are evil in their destruction of innocent and vulnerable people. What accounts for your abusive behaviour? Could it be that there is an evil gene in your body….just asking…because, unknown to you and unrecognised by you, you abuse others horribly on this blog.
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As long as it’s Roman Catholic priests I, er , ‘abuse’, I shall be very, VERY happy. These filthy, dirty, lying CHILD MOLESTORS!
There! All better now.😊
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Sour grapes S at 1:30 a.m. Not surprising they surface at that time of the morning.
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Larne’s voice must and will be heard on Brexit.
https://twitter.com/BBCMarkSimpson/status/1111390849844150273?s=19
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Burn, burn, burn a ring of fire….
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Mullaney ordered his kittens to attack Declan McGeehan.
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