Ireland’s Catholic Church hierarchy has admitted concerns about an “unhealthy atmosphere” at the country’s main seminary amid claims trainee priests there are using the gay dating app Grindr.
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It includes a review of policies surrounding whistle-blowing and an assessment of personnel and resource needs at the seminary, as well as asking seminary authorities to review policies regarding appropriate use of the internet.
Trustees at St Patrick’s College in Maynooth, Co Kildare, have met for crisis talks and ordered an overhaul of its approach to whistleblowers.
In a tacit acknowledgment of the problems that have beset Maynooth in recent months, the trustees warned in their statement: “There is no place in a seminary community for any sort of behaviour or attitude which contradicts the teaching and example of Jesus Christ”.
The Aug. 23 announcement also followed a decision by Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to pull his students from St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, after publicly raising misgivings about the life and governance of the 221-year old institution.
“The people have their breakfast, dinner and tea served up to them”, he said.
Dr Martin said the use of the app “would be inappropriate for seminarians, not just because they are trained to be celibate priests, but because an app like that is something which would be fostering promiscuous sexuality”.
However, the seminary’s trustees have issued a statement acknowledging “disquiet” among the faithful after one Irish archbishop has said he will no longer send trainee priests to Maynooth because of “strange goings on” and reports of a “gay sub-culture”.
The college’s board of trustees said following a meeting in Maynooth yesterday that it shared concerns about the “unhealthy atmosphere” created by anonymous claims and “speculative” social media comments.
The bishops urged any seminarian with complaints to “report them appropriately as soon as possible”.
No such uniform national policy now exists and so individual dioceses make the decision.
This subcommittee will involve lay people, families and “especially the presence of women” in priestly formation.
Maynooth has been training priests since 1795.
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It was built to train 500 trainee Catholic priests every year but numbers have nosedived to about 60 in recent years with a fall-off in vocations.
