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	Sordid Tale of Father Flash's Fall from Grace Glasgow Daily Record [Scotland] March 6, 2006 http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16778036&method=full& siteid=66633&headline=sordid-tale-of-father-flash-s-fall-from-grace--name_page.html THE BACKGROUND THE Record broke the story of how "Father Flash" was suspended from the priesthood after claims of an "inappropriate relationship" with a woman. Roddy MacNeil was told by his bishop to quit his Western Isles parish, Our Lady Of The Sea, on Barra, in December. His flock were not told about the scandal. Instead, they were told that their popular priest, renowned for his sharp dressing and suave manner, had "taken time out to reflect on the future of his priestly vocation". But the real reason the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, IanMurray, had suspended him was because he was having an affair. It later emerged that the woman MacNeil had been romantically involved with was his first cousin Hilda Robertson. Hilda fell pregnant in September last year. The baby is believed to be MacNeil's. He had conducted the wedding ceremony when Hilda married James Robertson in 1984. But she was seduced by the priest after she turned to him for comfort asher brother was dying. Hilda fell in love with MacNeil and eventually left her husband to live with the priest on Barra. MacNeil, 46, went missing when rumours of the relationship began to circulate on the island before Christmas. Hilda suspected MacNeil was cheating on her. And last month it emerged that he had also been dating 22-year-old student Jennifer Gilbert. The priest, who was a friend of Princess Diana's late mother, Frances Shand Kydd, is in hiding while Catholic Church chiefs decide on his fate.
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