Priest’s open letter to Pope

A Catholic priest who believes the Church here is in its “death throes” has written to the Pope – asking to meet him over pizza.

Fr Joe McDonald, 53, said in the open letter that some in the higher echelons of the Church needed “their P45s”, including some bishops.

The Belfast-born priest was ordained eight years ago and is based in St Matthew’s in Ballyfermot in Dublin.

He has already voiced his criticism of the Church over how it acted in the course of the recent marriage equality referendum and also appeared on RTÉ’s Liveline last week.

READ MORE: Help us Holy Father, the Church is dying

In his lengthy open letter he writes that “the clock is very much against us” and states: “Every week things get worse, with opportunities lost and still more cracks of disunity appearing.”Asking for the Pontiff’s “paternal intervention” – and also noting that due to “clericalism” in the Vatican, the letter might not be brought to his attention – he says:

“The Church in Ireland is dying. Yes we could say it is tired, or it has lost the young, or we must find a new language, and all that is true, but the reality is that the Irish Church is gasping, heaving, in a crippling smog of secularism.”

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