RTE has received a significant number of complaints on Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy's line of questioning with three newly-ordained Redemptorist priests, including Fr Brian Nolan from Lifford Gardens. The three priests were asked about celibacy and pre-marital sex in a tough interview in which the host looked for 'yes or no' answers to moral questions and warned the young priests his line of questioning would "not get any easier".
The Redemptorists could not be contacted this Monday on whether they agreed with newspaper reports today the priests had been "set up" by the national broadcaster.
One caller to the Limerick Leader described Friday night's show as "more ambush than an interview" while one poster on boards.ie said: "I think you're forgetting that those priests have nothing to answer for, they've done nothing wrong. Tubridy used them to make himself seem like an chat show host who isn't afraid to ask hard questions. He isn't afraid, he just asked the wrong questions to the wrong people....The newly ordained priests were fodder."
A spokesperson for RTE confirmed there had been numerous complaints about the show. Matters of faith and belief were divisive and the Late Late Show had also received complaints about Ryan Tubridy's robust questioning of atheist professor Richard Dawkins, author of 'The God Delusion'.
Asked this Monday what he thought of the show, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe, Trevor Williams, said: "I don't think the line of questioning was unexpected. I presume anyone accepting an invitation to be interviewed would in the circumstances have thought about those questions in advance. That is the world we live in today."
Bishop Williams thought the three priests "actually came across very well in how they dealt with the questions, they seemed to be very good priests".
Fr Nolan celebrated his first Mass as a newly-ordained priest in the Redemptorists at Mount St Alphonsus earlier this month and is based at Cherry Orchard in Dublin. A former pupil of St Clements who went on to study electronics at LIT, he worked for a while at Flextronics before taking his vows. At his first Mass, he acknowledged he was entering ministry at a difficult time for the Catholic Church.
"I share the negative feelings people have. I share the hurt and the anger towards the leaders in the Church who have not answered questions properly and who haven't handled this issue (the Murphy report) adequately. I hope that in the coming weeks we will see people stepping up to the plate and dealing with these issues the way they should have been dealt with a long time ago," he said.
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