I had a priest in touch with me yesterday afternoon who said that the Diocese of Killaloe’s wages fund had run out and some of the priests were now having to ask family, friends and strangers for financial help.
Is this true?
This priest told me that a former seminary friend of his, who was not ordained for the diocese, sent him Euro 100 the other day to keep him going?
The priest also claimed that while all of this is going on, the bishop Fintan Monahan, has left his palace in Ennis and is now driving around the countryside indulging his passion for photography?
Is this true?
The priest did point me to Monahan’s Facebook account and there certainly a lot of rural images on the account from this week.
I hope Lugs Monahan is observing all the government guidelines on combatting COVID 19?
To stay at home.
To only leave your home when it is really necessary.
To shop only when necessary.
To attend medical appointments or collect medications.
To care for elderly and vulnerable people.
To take personal exercise – with 2 kilometres of your home.
I gather that there is general unrest among Killaloe priests with Monahan.
He seems to be regarded as a cold fish dictator type and many people think he is currently concentrating on doing his best to become the next archbishop of Tuam when the current man retires soon. Monahan used to be the archbishop’s secretary in Tuam.
Personally, I never took to Monahan.
There is something about him that gives me the heebie-jeebies.
BUY A VENTILLATOR FOR THE NHS
Current balance £ 778
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 
79 replies on “HAVE THE PRIEST’S WAGES OF KILLALOE DIOCESE DRIED UP?”
The department of social protection/ social welfare provides supplementary welfare allowance payment to anyone without an income, until their situation is regularized.
Supplementary Welfare Allowance – Citizens Information
[Search domain http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/supplementary_welfare_schemes/supplementary_welfare_allow.html%5D
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That link does not work.
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Lol this is so funny. The poor priests are having a taste of how people in the real world live.
It is still remarkable how a fantastically wealthy institution can supposedly lack ready cash. It must all be hidden in bank accounts in various countries across Europe.
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama, April 2, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Robert J. Baker, the outgoing head of the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama, has encouraged his priests to distribute Holy Communion to the faithful on Holy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter.
“With this letter I wish to appeal to your pastoral sensitivity and ask that you find an appropriate way to distribute Holy Communion to your people on Holy Thursday, April 9, 2020,” the bishop wrote on March 31.
“I am very conscious of the hardship that the suspension of public worship has caused for our people, who are so devoted to Our Lord in the Eucharist,” he continued.
Baker also reminded his clergy that Holy Thursday is “the day on which we recall the Institution of the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Priesthood.”
He suggested it might be best to distribute Holy Communion outdoors, during a specified time frame, “with people driving in their cars.” The bishop cautioned to respect the local rules on public gatherings, adding that priests “may want to have ushers assist in controlling the line and the flow of people. If you choose a drive-up option, I ask that you have people exit their vehicle before receiving.”
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Lol.i wdnt take communion from any priest’s hands or anyone else …not at the moment.
Someone needs updating here…next they will be shaking hands.
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It sounds like it could be a case of early dementia to me, Bp Pat. He’s on 53 too, poor man.
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I believe that the Archdiocese of Tuam will becomes vacant in 2 years time when Archbishop Neary reaches 75. I had a feeling recently with the appointment of Paul Dempsey as Bishop of Achonry, that maybe they were going to leave him in Anchonry for 2 years, then send him to Tuam. Or will the Phonsie get an Archdiocese as he has not got a hope in hell of getting Dublin. We know that Possibly Leahy, been a Dublin Priest is possibly one of the top contenders for Dublin, wouldn’t the Dublin Priests be pissed if Doran from Elphin got Dublin. Could be worse, they could get Golden Knob Traynor from D & C. Thoughts ?.
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Photographs hi. Observing the countryside is one thing. Observing and serving the people is another. B shops all tune your lugs and peel yr eyeballs. See the signs of the times and serve God and the People hi
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Magwa:
Good Afternoon hi fly.
Begorra fly is the pic the twin sisters korona and kwarentine.
They are looking pretty as a picture.
Maybe the snap happy bish might take one for the album. Nothing else to be doing.
What!
Bye bye fly hi.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p087srx4
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I wonder if Pat would permit me to return to the theme of yesterday’s blog, in which I noticed that the Brothers of St John of God figured largely in the excellent French TV documentary. I have since recalled that this Order was also very prominent in abuse in Australia and New Zealand, where they ran schools for children with special needs and from troubled home backgrounds i.e. they were especially vulnerable; one of the worst schools for abuse was in one of the worst areas i.e. George Pell’s home diocese of Ballarat. If you google them you will see that they style themselves “Fatebenefratelli” i.e. “Do-good Brothers” or “Merciful Brothers”. This view is unlikely to be shared by the unfortunates who were placed in their malign care. And, as the film revealed, they have since concentrated their vile activities in Africa where they can continue to get away with their crimes.
The list can be constantly expanded, but numbers and percentages are less crucial – though not of course for the victims – than what Father Joulain identified as THE problem for the entire Church including suckers such as myself who in some way still identify with and therefore support “the system”: this is the cognitive, emotional and moral dissonance which vitiates the entire organization ESPECIALLY concerning the warped Catholic understanding of sexuality and human relationships. Essentially it is not about women’s rights, gay rights, contraceptive rights to be considered one by one but TRUTHFULNESS. Over the last few years I have looked askance at the cult of John Henry Newman as if he were some kind of trail-blazer for a better Church. In fact he sold himself – including his intellect and fucked-up emotional life – lock, stock and barrel to “the system”. A.N. Wilson tartly remarks in his book on “The Victorians” that Newman did really believe that 1,200 years later the house of Mary and Joseph had flown through the air from Nazareth to land in Loreto, or that it had been right to torture Galileo, “yet for some perverse reason of party-loyalty he appears to suggest that he does so believe”. AND he seems to suggest that at times a lie serves “the system” more effectively than the truth, leading to Charles Kingsley’s judgment that “Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy.”
I have never been able to get my head round why Newman’s maudlin and egomaniacal “Apologia” has been thought to have won the argument. If we return to the Church’s much trumpeted social mission, Wilson reminds us that Kingsley’s “The Water Babies” led to the passing of a law against pushing small boys up chimneys. Meanwhile Newman was justifying himself in tears at the Birmingham Oratory while mooning over Ambrose St John. The RC clergy: what a disgrace!
Forgive my rambling, but what I want to convey is that the RCC is characterized not by a journey into truth – pace JHN – but the absence of truth. That’s why nothing changes or ever will.
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Sorry for typo in my previous post. What I – and AN Wilson – meant was that one suspects that Newman did NOT believe that the Holy House had been air-lifted out of Nazareth in the 13th C and dropped down in Loreto, but out of party loyalty he CHOSE to believe that it had. I was drawing a comparison with today’s wishful thinking that the oft-mentioned sheep CHOOSE to believe that Pope Francis for example will sort out the filth, that most priests would be happily married family men had they not heroically given their lives to God, that Humanae Vitae was “prophetic” rather than pathetic, that the Church will emerge stronger … and all the other bull-shit that people CHOOSE to believe in the face of all reason and sanity.
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We can only hope the schools they ran have been closed down.
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On the financial front, has anybody any further information from Westminster about + Vincent’s dumping of the retired priests of the diocese on to the welfare system ? That’s gone quiet. I’m still trying to work out if it is true. Anybody got a copy of the letter that they can post so we can see exactly what is going on ? If it is true, then it is cynically opportunistic and deeply damaging to some of the most vulnerable members of the ‘diocesan family’. I wonder if when the present crisis is over it will be reversed ? Maybe its a handy opportunity for Westminster to divest itself of expensive and increasingly numerous retired clergy by passing them off on to the state welfare system ? I do recall a few years ago a big appeal in Westminster for funds for retired and sick clergy. What’s happened to that ? I guess once + Vincent has got rid of the burden of the sick and retired priests he will be able to channel that money to other interests ? If any of this is true, it is deeply shocking and undermines any claim that the Church is concerned with the weak, the vulnerable and the poor. So much for social justice !
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Clearly the clergy cannot be dumped on the welfare system. However, I do not see why they cannot be housed in presbyteries where they could still serve the parish in some way. In the old days priests did not usually retire in the sense of getting a bungalow in Eastbourne, so you got legendary old Canons still running the show well into their eighties and beyond. Clergy today have got into the habit of picking and choosing where they want to live at the expense of the usual payers. I strongly suspect that priests generally do not want to accommodate a retired brother priest in their large presbyteries which they would rather use for gentlemen callers.
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+Vincent has made many retired priests move into Presbyteries that have been adapted for them. Many PP’s of course don’t want a retired man living there. Vincent can be ruthless and has form for throwing priests out on to the street. A Westminster priest friend told me that Vincent is proceeding to protect diocesan funds and stop funding pension provisions for retired men. This would mean social security with a roof over their head and stipends for parish duties plus food on the table. I hear some other English dioceses are hoping to copy Vincent and stop any further pension funds for retired clergy.
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Surely some of the larger presbyteries could act as communities for the retired with each priest having an ensuite study/bedroom?
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Pat, your suggestion of larger presbyteries being like community houses is one which has been mooted now and then even for clergy of working age. Obviously it hasn’t happened, I suspect because living together is not something built in to the DNA of diocesan priests.
With any luck the prospect of a lifetime service with no retirement funds or possibility of saving for a pension will put even more men off and bring the downfall of the institution even faster.
What kind of a man wouldn’t look after retired priests?
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A single room but with a double bed would suffice, Bp Pat.
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+ Vincent is not indulgent of his priests. Except those who are his current ‘friends’. And they chop and change with the seasons. He will, however, look after himself. The Chiswick pad will be renovated and made comfortable for his retirement in a year or so. I’m sure he’s been salting away funds to make his retirement agreeable. In the meantime, the old retired boys can look after themselves. That’s the way it’s going to be. And + Vincent won’t feel a moment of pity for any of them. He’s a hard and mean bastardo !
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Retired clergy have been told in another diocese in England in the last few days to find out what benefits they may be eligible for. Seems the money is running out and they’ve been told diocesan money can no longer support them. I expect many others will now follow Elsie’s example. Basically you have served your purpose so f##k off now because you are now surplus to requirements. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
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I hear that was in East Anglia. Bishop Hopes, ex auxiliary of Hume in Westminster and an ex Anglican Vicar of Chelsea. What concern would he have for cradle Catholic clergy. He’s too busy selling off seaside empty Presbyteries. He’s a quiet assassin and ruthless fiend.
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Welcome to the real world, Father.
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It”s time for the ‘ diocesan family’, ‘the clerical fraternity’, to take seriously the concerns
of the ‘ Christian family’ and ‘human family’ rather than the institutional obsession with protecting cleric gangsters as seen in yesterday’s video.
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Alan Hopes was ordained bishop four years after Hume died. As a Bishop he’s been exceedingly pastoral. As for asking the state for assistance (in accordance to NI contributions) what’s the problem with that?
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They probably want to decant their soiled-senior-citizens onto the Council, so they can sell their current retirement homes on the London property market.
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Is the republic of Ireland not also on Lockdown, Bp Pat?
The Coronavirus Act 2020 which came into force on 25 March would probably now prevent Abp Turtle from taking to the streets alone with his monstrance between his asymmetrical wrists.
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Last time I looked, the city of Armagh is in the UK.
The Free Staters aren’t observing their Government’s edict restricting travel from home to 2km. The supermarket carparks in Enniskillen, Newry and Londonderry are clogged up with Free State cars.
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That’s a lie MMM
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The 2 km limit is for exercise, we’re allowed to go further for food, medicine and other essentials.
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Anon@ 2:55: You are addressing someone other than MournemanMichael. I certainly have no idea about Enniskillen, Newry nor Derry having not left home for nearly a fortnight. I’m quite content here in the mountains.
MMM
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Asymmetrical wrists?
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I prefer topics like this, Bp Pat, it’s nice when we get a bit local gossip, especially when a bishop has, allegedly, behaved so appallingly.
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MAGNA CARTA
I heard that the Rev Frs of Killaloe have posted a spirited song on YouTube…to express their priestly hardiness of spirit in these, er, pecuniarily restricted times. It’s a revision of the Monty Python song in the film, The Life of Brian.
🎶 Always look on the bright side of life (whistle, repeat line, repeat whistle)
When the money’s running low
And you end up with no dough
Don’t allow your priestly spirits
To bring you down too low
And always look on the bright side of life (whistle, repeat line, repeat whistle)
You can feel just as butch
By going on the mooch
Don’t allow yourselves to lounge
Cos there’s always the scrounge
And always look on the bright side of life🎶 (whistle, repeat line, repeat whistle)
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MC, you are surpassing yourself! 😂
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Northampton Diocese after money !
“Online Donation
We have an online donation facility on our main Diocesan website through Virgin Money giving. If you use this option we ask that you please indicate in the notes section which parish, including the parish name and area or which priest, including his full name that you would like your donation to be attributed to. Please note that there is the facility to Gift Aid any donation to your parish but donations to individual priests are not eligible for Gift Aid. Please therefore do not complete the Gift Aid option for any donation to a priest.
Standing Order via your own bank.
You can set up a standing order for donations to your parish using either your on line bank account or in branch. The information required to make the donation is as follows.
Bank; NatWest
Sort Code; 60-06-11
Account Name; 46898093
Account Name; Northampton Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust
Payment Ref; Parish Name and Area”
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I see Northampton are using Virgin Money – is that Blessed Virgin Money?
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According to the Charity Commission, the Northampton Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust has 125 employees.
Does that number include priests?
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Oh goodness no, that’s not the priests, that’s support staff. These include such roles as condom sweeper uppers, embarrassing paperwork shredders and plausible story spinners. Apart from such useful personnel it will also include cleaning ladies, cooks and safeguarding people.
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How can people set up a standing order when they are not earning.
Get a grip
The church should be supporting their moneyless parishioners…ask the Vatican for some of their millions.
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I am not relaxed about bank details being published on a web site. Too many hackers about.
I have searched the Northampton Diocese website and can see evidence of Virgin Money but not the other bank details you describe.
Incidentally I bank with a subsidiary of Virgin Money.
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My goodness, I’ve heard it all now! I have a young lad in my parish who’s 23, great young lad. He’s wanting to be become a priest. I don’t know how to tell him it’s not the life for anyone.
The church can’t even pay some of its priests.
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Just tell him and stop messing him about.
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It’s not as simple as that! He truly desires to serve the Lord. He’s been befriended by the young seminarians at Maynooth and he really wants to become a priest. I don’t want to dash his dreams and make him think I’m trying to sabotage his attempt to join. At the same time I understand the life isn’t what it used to be and Maynooth would only destroy him.
I will pray for him and hope our Father in heaven will intervene and help him!
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MAGNA CARTA
Fr A C, if you aren’t taking the piss here and you genuinely have a berk who says he wants ‘to serve the Lord’ (What an archaic piece of quaisi-pious cheese.😕) by joining the institutional RCC as a professional parasite, scrounger, and moocher, then it isn’t the Lord he wants to serve, but himself.
Tell him to do one.
And then look in a mirror and tell yourself the same.😊
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On the other hand “great young lads” are just what seminaries are looking for. If he’s good looking as well, he’ll be a goner – or do I mean a goer?
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Seriously Fr AC, if he seriously wants to serve the Lord and you think seminary would destroy him you have to tell him. He will then be making an informed decision.
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11:10
Suggest to the young man to consider serving the Lord in other ways.
Tell him to check this blog. Be honest re difficulties.
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Father A C, 12.11,
“make him think I’m trying”
Glad to know you’ve got that power over his substitute for a mind
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10.56: Your pathetic humour doesn’t work!!! Go and find time for prayer and penance this day. Surprised you haven’t used your mass to speak your hatred and vengeance. Why? Because you know that it would defile the SACRED MEMORY OF CHRIST.
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I have NEVER used Mass to express my strong criticisms of the RCC institution. People come to Mass to hear the Word of God and receive the Body of Christ and not to listen to my personal opinion on the RCC. Its called observing boundaries.
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11.21: Glad you keep some things SACRED. But if you had a real, true CHRIST THEOLOGY, we are called to become what we receive- TO BE CHRIST. This will call us to reject all that is contrary to God, all that is destructive, dehumanizing, including all human abuse. But the Christ we honour in the Eucharist and whom we profess to imitate is also a calling not to initiate campaigns of judgment, hatred or vengeance. Pat, you facilitate too much of the latter. Sadly.
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Lol daddy-o at 6:39 demonstrates an absence of understanding of boundaries himself.
You carry on, Pat, you perform the mission of Christ better than these don’t rock the boat types 😇
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No, wait…
When have the clergy ever not been asking friends, family, strangers, in fact everyone they met, for money?
That would be the source of the funds for the so-called wages.
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That’s all they good at it seems, that and smelling or licking the seats of mens’ bicycles, especially in the summer months.
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That is known as the practice of “guffhawing”.
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While we fret about the terrible thought of a priest having to join his parishioners in a local authority funded retirement home, has anybody else made the connection with one of the aspects of yesterday’s video that abusive priests and religious usually end up spending their retirement years very comfortably looked after, particularly at a house of their monastery or order – no questions asked until an investigative journalist comes and rings the bell? It is stark contrast to the often ruined lives of their victims. They also of course have a tame confessor on tap to salve stirrings of conscience – if any.
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Of course, we have still not seen the Australia TV documentary or on Youtube, but it seems the final instalment yesterday includes a new victim of Pell who emerges from the shadows.
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Why was his friend not ordained for the diocese? I wonder.
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This is off the subject but is something that has been raised in earlier posts the facat that Bishops seem to be doing nothing in response to this pandemic. Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool announced the other day that the Diocese would be donating £20,000 to the NHS for protective clothing. .He admits that t is a drop in the ocean but it is something.
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Presumably, the money came from the parishioners in the first place.
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Fintaon messed up the David Dysky case. Fintaon just paid off Dysky quietly. All his education, accomdation and living expenses paid off if he keeps his mouth shut. Typical Fintaon colluding with Maynooth.
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Why did Dysky need to be paid off? He certainly looked pretty pleased with himself the last time he popped up on this blog, flaunting his body for the benefit of the ladies – I don’t think! If he came out of Maynooth convinced he was gay – after all – then the place did him a favour. Can we stop thinking of these characters as victims? Most of these “lads” ( always the “lads” in seminaries ) used the system just as it used them. Period. It’s those who stayed who worry me.
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How much is Fintaon paying the two ex seminarians off. This money could go to charity to buy food and medicine for the poor.
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4.05 and 4.10 same idiot. Gives the game away spelling the man’s name wrong in both posts.
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You are a trouble-maker at 4.10 with no consideration for those you refer to.
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Are we supposed to believe the killaloe diocese is broke?
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… and Lugs has simply run away.
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“… indulging his passion for photography?”
Let’s hope that the only passion he is indulging, Bp Pat.
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Take your mind out of your crotch you filthy animal.
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Some comnentators are suggesting that priests literally should be corralled together in one presbytery to free up houses for healthcare workers or needy families. Offering houses for needy families or health care workers is very laudable where possible. The suggestion that priests be moved into a common presbytery is nonsense. It is contrary to HSE guidelines. There are two priests with me – one 85 and the other 78: wonderfully helpful in the day to day life of the parish but both have health issues. They are self isolating. Most priests now are probably in the 70 + bracket and therefore have to isolate. It is foolish and silly to suggest then that we live together. In the absence of my colleagues I have to officiate at all funerals. Three this week already and two for next week, one being a man who died from covid 19. I am glad I can do this but the grief I am witnessing is overwhelming and having to keep distance adds more sorrow. I have to ensure that I remain reasonably healthy to respond like this. The suggestions being put out by some are unworkable. Our parish centre was offered to the local HSE and Gardai and they will be using it from next week to co-ordinate plans and necessary meetings for use as a central point in an emergency. I do hope our Dioceses will offer empty houses for use at this time. We are all trying to help but are so limited apart from keeping an eye on our elderly neighbours.
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You have two or three funerals in a week and you are burnt out? Good thing you do not have to live in the real world of A & E, or the police, fire service or people such as school teachers and social workers who come in before their shift to make sure the kids in their care at least get breakfast. You are a disgrace, Father, like all your kind. And who was the character earlier today who claimed that it was not in the DNA of secular clergy to live together? I thought that was normative in the “good old days” or else why were these vast presbyteries built?
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7.19: Another of the bandwagon of haters….Pat loves you all. Really.
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Just like God does, dear.
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4.43: Poor jealous Marge…she was forced as a student to look into her mirror (who’s the ugliest of them all…) and was forced to conclude that she was indeed most unfit and unsuitable for priesthood. The old hag has been vengeful ever since. Soaked in gin and tonic each moment her brain has dropped into her backside…
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9.10: A brilliant laugh….indeed, poor auld nasty Marjorie…😁😁😁😁😁😉🤣😄🤣🤣…
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4.09pm…it seems then,,,you are damned if you don’t and damned if you do. Malcolm McMahon announced it to his people and did this on their behalf. There was no suggestion that it was his money,but rather the money of the Catholic people of Liverpool. More power to him, and other in many churches who are like him.
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Maybe, but I don’t see why the Catholic people of Liverpool. any more than the ladies of Chipping Campden, or the unemployed steelworkers of Corby, should be expected to subsidize the NHS. The UK is a wealthy country, and should its citizens prefer to put their money, say, into a useless fight of aircraft carriers rather than healthcare, that is a political decision to be addressed at the polls. Another possibility would be to scrap the NHS entirely, and try a different system. However, as in the Catholic Church, it would appear that we prefer to manage dysfunction rather than face reality.
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THE ABC TV series REVELATION — Allegations re Cardinal Pell
If your in Australia I think you’ll be able to watch the series on iview – https://iview.abc.net.au/show/revelation
but please see the two pages at – https://iview.abc.net.au/show/revelation
Page 1 is a statement by a spokesman for the Cardinal
Page 2 is a statement from the diocese.
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