WE’RE getting exactly what it says on the tin.
The surprise, in many ways though, is the surprise.
After all Fr Sean Sheehy is a man with form and plenty of it. You might wonder how he is left near the altar of a church in an official capacity.
But equally wonder why anyone aware of his previous utterings would go in the front door of a church knowing he was the priest about to celebrate Mass.
Fr Sheehy was let loose at masses last Saturday night and Sunday morning and the Listowel faithful were told that sexual sin was rampant: sex between two men and two women was a sin and transgenderism was described as “lunatic”.
It took this particular incident where he condemned LGBTQI+ people, condom users, abortion procurers, to have Fr Sheehy withdrawn from the Mass roster. You could argue this is simply too little, too late, window dressing on the part of his boss Bishop of Kerry Ray Browne.
After all Fr Sheehy is a man who provided a character reference for a convicted sex offender Danny Foley of Meen, Listowel, in Tralee Circuit Court in 2009.
It was interesting to read what was said in a statement by the bishop in the wake of the most recent offensive remarks by Fr Sheehy. All rather Jesuitical.
The bishop said he was aware of the deep upset and hurt caused by the contents in question delivered over the weekend.
“I apologise to all who were offended. The views expressed do not represent the Christian position. The homily at a regular weekend parish Mass is not appropriate for such issues to be spoken of in such terms. I regret that this has occurred while a parish pilgrimage to the Holy Land is taking place,” said the bishop.
So, the apology was “to all who were offended”.
You had the mention of the “Christian position” and how the homily at a “regular weekend parish Mass” was not a place for such issues to be spoken of in such terms. So, we can extrapolate that a Christian position is not necessarily a Catholic one, and that such a homily, possibly, might indeed be suitable in front of a different congregation.
Fr Sheehy was saying Mass in the same church in Listowel where the gates were locked to keep out the body of Peggy McCarthy, a young local woman, 76 years ago.
Anyone who has heard RTÉ’s compelling Documentary On One: In Shame, Love, In Shame by Conor Keane will recall the utter horror of how, while in advanced labour, she was turned away from two Kerry hospitals.
Following her death the local parish priest Canon Patrick Brennan, refused to let her body lie in the local church.
Catholic v Christian?
Extraordinarily for the time, a group of local men forced open the locked gates of the church at night. Even that proved fruitless as, in the end, she was brought to the hospital chapel in Listowel and buried in a family plot in a Christian burial. The priest still refused to give her a funeral Mass. Another example of the difference between Catholic and Christian, eh?
If you happened to catch any of Fr Sheehy’s broadcast interviews since last weekend, you’d know he is a real fire and brimstone merchant. Listening to him, humility would not be a word that would come to mind, nor compassion.
The priest, who had been based in Baton Rouge in Louisiana in the US and returned to Kerry in 2007, explained his homilies are on the scriptures and the teaching of the Church. When he was being censured by his boss, he said he told the bishop he himself needed to read the catechism and read the scriptures and told him he had sacrificed the truth in order to appease people. “Bishop or no bishop,” he retorted.
It is utterly disgusting to hear him say such things as gay politicians are going to hell if they do not repent. It is worth pointing out that the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland has urged Dr Browne to sanction Fr Sheehy from celebrating mass and other sacraments.
This priest has plenty of form, coming to prominence previously when he shook hands with and provided a character reference for convicted sex offender Danny Foley in Tralee Circuit Court in 2009. He stood in the court and was one of a group of around 50 people, men in the main, who shook Foley's hand while he was awaiting sentencing.
All the while the sexual assault victim sat in the courtroom looking on. Foley had been unanimously convicted by a jury of 10 men and two women and sentenced to seven years in prison, with the final two years suspended.
Subsequently Fr Sheehy would say it was an “extremely harsh sentence” and a miscarriage of justice had occurred. He was censured by the then bishop of Kerry and resigned from his duties as Castlegregory parish priest.
The victim, who had a young son at that time, spoke afterwards of her devastation at watching as those people lined up to shake the hand of her attacker. It was reported subsequently how her front door was kicked in and she received death threats.
How, you could legitimately wonder, was Fr Sheehy, who was deputising for parish priest Canon Declan O’Connor, ever allowed back on the altar after that? We all know there is a dire shortage of priests and that elderly priests have to continue to work even when they wish to retire.
One gets the sense that Fr Sheehy would be keen to “spread the word” any chance he could get. But surely there are some standards that should be upheld.
However, most of the time now there is a lot of pretend that happens on both sides — the massgoers and the Church. Indeed, you could argue that regular massgoers might have more legitimate cause to be offended at the likes of what Fr Sheehy spouts off.
As opposed to the “bouncy castle” Catholic who turn up expecting their children to receive First Holy Communion or Confirmation, then don’t usually darken a church door from one week to the next, or maybe at Christmas.
The Catholic Church may be on its knees in terms of attendance and those dwindling priest numbers. But what Fr Sheehy said last weekend and was allowed to say by being on that altar, is more or less company policy.
I remember in 2018, attending a First Holy Communion Mass in the days before the abortion referendum. The upcoming vote was raised by the priest in the sermon in what felt like a most inappropriate way.
But who was I to criticise? I’m rarely in a church and the man preaching was sticking to Church teaching — however much it stuck in my craw to sit there listening.
So, if you choose to attend Mass you have the right not to like what you hear and even to get up and walk out.
But remember that whatever the niceties that have built up in more modern times it’s the same old teaching and unbendable rules that lie at the heart of it all.