Best-selling author Marian Keyes has been forced to apologise after
suggesting that there should be a “National Throw A Stone At A Priest
Day”.
Ms Keyes then posted a message to social networking site Twitter
stating: “no matter how ‘nice’ a priest is, no matter how many raffles
he runs, he is still a foot soldier for a f*cked-up misogynistic
regime”.
Amid a flurry of protest on the site, Ms Keyes later removed the
offending message and apologised “unreservedly” for what she described
as “an ill-thought-out tweet”.
The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) has rejected the anti-Church tone of much of the recent debate around abortion.
Following Senator Ivana Bacik’s accusation that Catholic bishops
opposed legislating for the X case on the basis of “misogyny towards
women” and a belief in the “innate deceitfulness of women”, Fr P.J.
Madden of the ACP said such suggestions were “inappropriate, obnoxious
and seriously objectionable”.
Fr Sean McDonagah added: “I might not agree with every position that
the Church has taken on women in recent years but Senator Bacik's
comments were appalling. With her [Senator Bacik] and many more there is
a deep seated and pervasive bias against Catholicism.”
Fr Madden told The Irish Catholic he believed what lay
behind these comments “implies an ignorance at what constitutes the
Catholic Church which is generally perceived as being made up of bishops
and male clergy, when in fact when we speak on matters like that, in
particular on matters of life, we speak on behalf of congregations that
are both male and female."
“The negative comments that came out in the presentations to the
committee give us an opportunity to state positively once again that
however unpopular it might be we are consistent in presenting a moral
standard which challenges all of us to respect life and one another,” Fr
Madden said.