A priest in County Kilkenny, Ireland, has accused Jewish Justice
Minister Alan Shatter of having a "vested interest" in damaging the
Church through the government's investigation into child abuse.
Father Eddie Conway made the accusation during a sermon at the Black
Abbey in the Irish midlands last weekend.
He allegedly told congregants
that the current wave of criticism over child abuse is the result of a
"bigger agenda" set by people out to damage the Church, including Mr
Shatter.
He described Mr Shatter as "Jewish and non-practising and an
atheist".
Several parishioners walked out in protest, with one telling the
local paper, the Kilkenny People: "At the start of his sermon he said
that the Church had been in the news over the sex abuse scandals and
that it had been a bad week for the Church."
"He said that the sex abuse scandal was bad but that there was a lot
more going on. I was disgusted by his remarks. They were bizarre and off
the wall. I was not having any of it so I walked out and brought my
children with me".
A spokesman for the Dominican Order of priests, to which Father
Conway belongs, said that he "could not stand over those comments if
they were made".
Father Conway has been told not to speak to the media, but Father
Louis Hughes, Prior of the Black Abbey, said he had not received any
complaints about the sermon from congregants.
Mr Shatter, from Dublin, is the only Jewish member of Ireland's Dáil
Éireann, its lower house.
As Minister for Justice, he was responsible
for the release of the Cloyne Report last month, looking into the sex
abuse scandal in the Catholic diocese of Cloyne in southern Ireland.
When the report was released Mr Shatter called the diocese's response
to complaints and allegations of child sexual abuse "totally inadequate
and inappropriate."
He said: "It is difficult to read the Cloyne Report
and avoid despair."