A leading Irish cleric censored by the Vatican has admitted he’d be a better priest if he was allowed to marry.
Fr Brian D’Arcy has made the claim in a television documentary of his life to be broadcast in Ireland on Monday.
In the programme he also questions his future in the priesthood after he was taken to task by the Vatican for publicly challenging some of its core teachings.
The BBC documentary also sees Fr D’Arcy revealing that he was sexually abused.
The Turbulent Priest programme features Fr D’Arcy as he travels across Europe and speaks to a number of other people about the Catholic Church’s teachings and whether he can continue in the religious life.
Among those he meets is the conservative priest Fr Brian McKevitt.
The Irish Times reports that Fr McKevitt describes the Ulsterman’s writings as ‘a kind of a candyfloss spirituality’.
Fr McKevitt adds: “It looks attractive but when you actually bite into it there’s kind of an absence of substance, an absence of nourishment.”
4 Comments
-
-
-
-
Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.KatieMurphy | Oct 31, 2012, 01:21 AM EDT
Teh sooner the better all the priests leave. The catholic church hasnt advanced since they stopped burnings at the stake during the "holy" inquisition..............Now they just burn the minds of children........All readers should get familiar with SNAP's website where somewhere it says that 100,000 kids were abused...........
MegK311 | Oct 29, 2012, 07:53 PM EDT
Here in the US many RC Priests cross over to the Episcopal Church. In Ireland he could probably cross over to the Church of Ireland.
seanomelb | Oct 29, 2012, 05:17 PM EDT
Any Catholic theologian who preaches outside the narrow thinking of the present pope and his cardinals is verbally crucified. The Catholic right is desperately clinging to medieval beliefs.
phearne | Oct 29, 2012, 02:15 PM EDT
I think priests should be allowed to marry.Most priest have no concept of the problems that arise in a marriage.I believe they would be better at counseling couples who are planning on getting married and helping couples whose marriages are falling apart.Experiencing a situation leads to a better understanding and makes for a better councilor.Imagine going to a marriage councilor who has no concept of being married.Would you really want to go to someone who has no clue about being married?Would you go to a dentist if you were having symptoms of heart problems or to a cardiologist