In a letter to the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association (CSNA) last week, Tanya Mulryan, the marketing director of MCC Cards, warned the association not to advise its members to stop selling pre-signed Mass cards.She said that legal advisors for MCC, which is based in New Street, Longford, were ‘‘aware of the situation’’.
According to the 2009 Charities Act, the sale of such cards is illegal unless authorised by a bishop or head of a religious order recognised by the Catholic Church. Anyone breaching the section is liable to a fine of up to €300,000 and ten years’ imprisonment.
MCC challenged the constitutionality of the legislation in the High Court. Last December, Mr Justice John McMenamin rejected the challenge by MCC owner Thomas McNally.
In his judgment, McMenamin said the Mass cards market was ‘‘significant in size’’, and that MCC’s unaudited accounts showed sales of about €250,000.
McNally said he distributed up to 120,000 Mass cards annually, and that he had an arrangement with an African bishop to sell the cards in return for payments to priests in Tanzania.
But the judge said consumers and the bereaved were being deceived by a ‘‘series of abuses’’, including the sale of cards which were ‘‘simply bogus’’, with illegible signatures or signed by priests who were suspended or dead.
He said there was ‘‘ample material’’ to show that the activities of MCC could mislead ordinary Catholics about the authenticity of their Mass cards.
Before the case was heard, the CSNA advised its 1,500 members to ask their Mass card supplier for proof that a bishop or a provincial of a Catholic order had approved the Mass card.
McNally’s solicitors accused the CSNA of ‘‘misrepresenting’’ the law and threatened to issue legal proceedings if the CSNA did not withdraw its statement.
In a letter sent last week, Mulryan said the High Court judgment had ‘‘reaffirmed the legal standing of MCC’’ and the company was ‘‘extremely proud that at no time was there any suggestion or inference as to the legality of the company or its agents’’.
She said the company expected to be successful in its Supreme Court appeal.
However, regardless of the outcome of the appeal, MCC said it hoped that ‘‘the surrounding issues will spark a national debate leading to a comprehensive independent investigation into the self serving influence which the Irish Catholic hierarchy appears to exert on ministers, TDs and senators’’.
Mulryan said she hoped that such an investigation would ultimately result in statutory regulations and sanctions which would ‘‘help prevent and eliminate the occurrence of such corrupt practices’’.
SIC: SBP/IE