In the North a Catholic priest has urged his parishioners not to give money to foreign nationals holding unauthorised collections outside church doors. Fr Aidan Troy was writing in his parish weekly bulletin for his congregation at Holy Cross church in Ardoyne, Belfast.
He wrote that in some instances, the collectors may be "professional beggars being used by unseen people. Their actions were affecting regular church collections.”.
"The gospel encourages us to assist those in need, but we have no way of knowing what the situation of these people really is or how needy they are," he wrote.
"People here are so good and they feel guilty at not giving. The collectors' style is to hold a holy picture up in front of people and plead for money.
"There's a limited amount of cash in the parish and this does take away from the established collections."
It is believed that such unauthorised begging has become more frequent at churches throughout Ireland.
It presents priests with a dilemma.
"There's nothing you can do. You can't move them out of the grounds and I wouldn't do that,” he said.
"There's no element of racism here. If these people or anyone came to me looking for help I would provide it. I would ask from the altar for people to help.
Such help is only short term. It would be more important to advise them of the help they could get from statutory agencies etc.
“It is not a violation of their religious beliefs if they don't give to these collections," Fr Troy said.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce