Unholy row at St Michael's church after parishioner questions priest during Mass

Michie · Jan 31, 2023

PARISHIONERS at St Michael the Archangel Church in Finaghy were left stunned at the weekend after an unholy row broke out over the way Holy Communion is served at Mass.

The incident took place at 5pm Mass last Saturday evening.

The Mass was being celebrated by Fr Brendan Mulhall, Parish Priest at Holy Trinity who often stands in at St Michael’s when Fr Ciarán Feeney is unavailable.

In his homily following the Gospel, Fr Mulhall said he wanted to address the congregation on a personal level after being made aware of negative comments about him on social media.

He said someone on social media had described him as the "Antichrist".

“I will be the first to admit I am not perfect but I don’t think I am the Antichrist.

“For years I have believed that social media is very dangerous and very poisonous. I have always believed that Facebook can do a lot of damage in that it gives people who have nothing to say a place to say it.

“I really enjoy coming to St Michael’s and helping out Fr Ciarán and the parishioners here. I am under no obligation to come here and I do not get paid to come here. I simply come to help Fr Ciarán. There probably wouldn’t be Mass if I didn’t come so I am happy to help.

“When I was a teenager I became a Eucharistic Minister here. After 11 years of theological training, I returned here the day after my ordination to celebrate my first Mass. I have always had a strong relationship with St Michael’s.

Continued below.

Unholy row at St Michael's church after parishioner questions priest during Mass

PARISHIONERS at St Michael the Archangel Church in Finaghy were left stunned at the weekend after an unholy row broke out over the way Holy Communion is served at Mass.

belfastmedia.com

Ave Maria · Jan 31, 2023

Wow. That was so disrespectful of that person to try to argue with the priest during Mass. Mass is not the time to be discussing or arguing things with the priest. Any discussion should occur during a more appropriate time outside of the Mass.

Michie · Jan 31, 2023

Ave Maria said:
Wow. That was so disrespectful of that person to try to argue with the priest during Mass. Mass is not the time to be discussing or arguing things with the priest. Any discussion should occur during a more appropriate time outside of the Mass.

I agree. But it makes me question if the priest was also inappropriate by bringing it up during a homily during Mass. Maybe the weekly bulletin would of been more appropriate? I don’t know... just seemed like fertile ground to sow seeds of dissension.

chevyontheriver · Jan 31, 2023

Michie said:
I agree. But it makes me question if the priest was also inappropriate by bringing it up during a homily during Mass. Maybe the weekly bulletin would of been more appropriate? I don’t know... just seemed like fertile ground to sow seeds of dissension.

I thought about walking out of mass this week. We had a substitute priest and he was awful. He was of a certain age, that is a little bit older than me, and of a sort that cardinal McElroy might have been proud. Later my wife and I talked about it and she said if he was pastor we would never have joined that parish.

I guess the point is that it's one thing to get up and walk out of mass, but another to disrupt and argue in the middle of mass.

Michie · Jan 31, 2023

chevyontheriver said:
I thought about walking out of mass this week. We had a substitute priest and he was awful. He was of a certain age, that is a little bit older than me, and of a sort that cardinal McElroy might have been proud. Later my wife and I talked about it and she said if he was pastor we would never have joined that parish.

I guess the point is that it's one thing to get up and walk out of mass, but another to disrupt and argue in the middle of mass.

Exactly. It’s just not done but I can’t help but feel the priest In the op sort of baited the situation in the guise of a homily.

chevyontheriver · Jan 31, 2023

Michie said:
Exactly. It’s just not done but I can’t help but feel the priest In the op sort of baited the situation in the guise of a homily.

Probably. He never should have incited the reactions he got. The mass is not supposed to be about the priest but about Jesus. Which is why I think ad orientem improves the humility of priests in that it’s not about them.

JSRG · Jan 31, 2023

What was the reason for the criticisms towards him to begin with? He doesn't, at least in the quotes offered in the article, give any indication. The only one I see is:

"“As many of you know, I do the 5pm Mass here and then sprint to get the car to do my own 6.30pm Mass at Holy Trinity but if while doing that I am described as a ‘hypocrite’, a ‘fake priest’, a ‘fraud’ and an ‘Antichrist’, I don’t actually think those comments say much about me to be honest.""

Okay, so this is him responding to having to leave mass quickly afterwards to get to another mass. But I'd expect if he was actually getting attacked on social media, there would be something more to it than that. So what is there?

I tried searching online to see if I could find anything, but the only thing I could find was a brief mention on a post on a random blog from several years ago:

DOWN & CONNOR – A SUMMARY

These last few days we have been concentrating on the major problems in the diocese of Down & Connor. We have other issues to explore and so we bring our current commentary on D&C to an end…

bishoppatbuckley.blog

It lists various criticisms towards the diocese (I have no idea of their accuracy) and one of the things it criticizes is "The fact that the PP of Turf Lodge – Brendan Mulhall – refuses to live in the presbytery and who is an absentee/visiting PP." But that's from three years ago and I'm unsure if it's in any way applicable.

Erose · Feb 1, 2023

The whole incident is the priests fault IMO. He should not have mentioned this during a homily or any other part of the Mass. If he wanted to discuss this, he should have waited until after the dismissal. This was just unprofessional on the part of the priest. I'm not sure why he shouldn't expect a response after calling out the disgruntled in the parish, because his feelings were hurt.

Priests are there to serve us, and not the other way around.

And what is up with this diocese still having a rule like this in place? I receive communion in my mouth, and don't remember an occasion where my mouth and the priest's hand made contact. So this diocese needs to pull its head out of ...

Wolseley · Feb 1, 2023

The priest and the parishioner were both wrong, in my humble opinion; but laying that aside, I think the incident reflects, in microcosm, the developing split that is festering in the Church as a whole. For instance, one thing that Fr. Mulhall said is rather telling:

article said:
“There are priests, bishops, cardinals who are vicious, usually over social media in their opposition to Pope Francis and the direction he is leading the Church in,”

The question then, apparently is, just what *is* the direction that Pope Francis is leading the Church in? And is it the right direction, or the wrong one? Assuming there is opposition to said direction, then there obviously has to be another direction, which implies a split in unity.

Given the current situation within the Church, with pro-sexual deviancy groups on one side, and anti-sexual deviancy groups on the other, the ongoing abuse scandals that have been with us now for twenty years, and the Church in Germany in open schism, I'm afraid we're unfortunately going to see a lot more of this.

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Unholy row at St Michael's church after parishioner questions priest during Mass

Michie

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