Some priests are complaining that they no longer wish to do online Mass during the pandemic, due to criticisms they are receiving about their ‘performance’.
Isolation has been identified as the most damaging aspect of the pandemic for elderly rural priests in Ireland according to a spokesperson for the Association of Catholic Priests.
In an online presentation to the association's annual meeting, Fr Tim Hazelwood, a parish priest in Co Cork, said he had been contacted by some priests about their experience of isolation.
He challenged dioceses about what they were doing to counteract this loneliness, and to support elderly priests based in rural parishes.
He said priests were only contacted by a diocese about “money or data protection or things like that, but it is left up to us to find the support we need”.
He added: “I think there is a huge onus on all of us to look out for each other.”
Fr Hazelwood also highlighted that some priests have been upset by “very hurtful criticism” from “Mass-hoppers” who go from one online Mass to another passing comments on priests’ “performances”.
According to Fr Hazelwood these “Mass-hoppers” are undermining many priests who are already self-conscious and are “not performers”.
He told the ACP’s AGM that some priests had stopped doing online services because “they couldn’t take it” anymore.
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