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14th December 2023
02:19pm GMT
Emily Mullen
“The introduction of all these elements into that funeral mass frankly was a scandal and it shouldn’t have happened. If they wanted to have that sort of event they could have hired a hall somewhere and did all that." “[Shane MacGowan] was a good man in his own way and he was entitled to a funeral mass as every baptised Catholic is but all of that stuff should have been kept out of the mass, there is no place for that in the mass at all. "It was an abuse of the liturgy and it showed a completely askew understanding of what we actually are doing when we celebrate a funeral mass.”The priest was particularly displeased with the rendition of 'Fairytale of New York' during the funeral, which was sung by Glen Hansard and Lisa O'Neill. In Fr McCafferty's view, the singing of the Christmas classic after Holy Communion was "totally out of place". He also said "the words that are used in that song and in the church showed no understanding of the sacredness of what the place is and the holiness of the mass," before calling it "completely inappropriate to say the least, to the point of scandal". "Something needs to be done about these so-called celebrity funerals in a Catholic church. If people don’t want that then go somewhere else. I watched maybe a couple of minutes and thought my goodness, I couldn’t watch any more of that," Fr McCafferty added. “We’re not there to entertain, we’re there to celebrate the worship of God and lead people in the worship of God. I wouldn’t allow that in my church.” This article originally appeared on Joe.ie. READ ON: This couple's decades-old collection of hand-made cards will warm the cockles of your heart
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