IRELAND
Christian Today
James Macintyre
02 August 2016
The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has decided to stop sending trainee priests from the diocese to the Irish national seminary because of what he calls “strange goings-on” there, amid reports of a “gay sub-culture”.
Instead of sending the would-be priests to St Patrick’s College in Maynooth, in north County Kildare, Archbishop Martin will dispatch them to the Irish College in Rome. This process will begin with three seminarians going to Rome next autumn.
The move comes after claims in the Irish press of rumours that some of the 60 resident seminarians at Maynooth have been using the homosexual dating app ‘Grindr’.
Martin told The Irish Times: “I wasn’t happy with Maynooth…There seems to be an atmosphere of strange goings-on there, it seems like a quarrelsome place with anonymous letters being sent around. I don’t think this is a good place for students”. He added: “However, when I informed the president of Maynooth of my decision, I did add ‘at least for the moment’.”
The anonymous letters were reportedly circulated in clerical circles about the use of the dating app.
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