There is a rather odd story in today’s Guardian about an Irish Priest who gave a rather surprising Powerpoint presentation to the parents of children in his care. It was supposed to be all about their upcoming first confessions.
It all happened at St Mary’s Primary School in the Northern Ireland village of Pomeroy, County Tyrone where, on 26th March to a Rev Martin McVeigh. To start his presentation …
McVeigh inserted the memory stick, clicked open a folder – and unleashed a cavalcade of sexually explicit pictures of naked men.
“He was visibly shaken and flustered. He gave no explanation or apology to the group and bolted out of the room,” the parents said.
Two other school and church officials continued the communion discussion, they said, “however the parents who viewed the pictures were horrified and distracted”. They said an eight-year-old child was also present.
Now what makes this even more bizarre is what happened next …
After about 20 minutes, they said, McVeigh rejoined the meeting “and wrapped up by saying that the children get lots of money for their holy communion and should consider giving some of it to the church”.
Seriously!! … pops back 20 minutes after his gay porn show, and as if nothing has happened, asks for their money.
I note that the parents are quoted as being, “enraged that Father McVeigh has been entrusted with the pastoral care of their children“. Listen folks, after all the news of what has been going on within the Catholic church, you have only just now managed to work out that trusting a priest to look after your children might not be such a good idea.
So what comes next? The denials of course. This chap, “insists he didn’t know how the explicit images got on the memory stick” … and the excuse? … “other church officials used the memory stick“. Oh well I guess that makes it OK then.
So what do I make of this? I can see several explanations here …
- Somebody set it up as a prank – If so, then McVeigh’s reaction was rather odd. I would have expected him to be flustered and to explain he was the victim of a prank, but instead he runs out of the room. Perhaps it was a prank, but he really is gay and has not come to terms with that.
- Perhaps it really is all his – If so, then he needs to deal with that and be more honest about who he really is. If this is the case, it would indeed be very challenging for him to cope because being gay is not exactly compatible with being Catholic.
Regardless of which it is, I simply cannot resist the very obvious quip … we now know why it is called a flash drive.