‘Do you want to be Catholic or not?’

Cloyne priest, Fr Gabriel Burke, has told this paper that he refused Communion to Cork North Central TD and Minister of State Colm Burke “because the salvation of souls is at stake.”

“Deputy Burke makes himself out to be the victim. The victims are the 49,000 babies who have died since the legislation changed. 10,300 babies last year alone, which is 1/6 of the babies conceived.

“People really don’t want to talk about the numbers. It has been horrendous, it’s equivalent to, if you take the average primary school there’s about 300, we have killed 324 primary schools full of kids.”

Fr Burke said he was getting great support for his stance and that he had no intention of trying to embarrass the Minister (who presented himself for the third time) or cause controversy.

“This isn’t done out of any act of vengeance. It’s done for the love of the person to show them that their crime of legislating for the killing of babies is so heinous that we can’t give them Communion and they need to repent and they need to help in the pro-life cause. The only way you can get into heaven is to be free of mortal sin” he said.

Fr Burke added: “When you go to confession you confess your sins but you have to make reparation to repair the damage you’ve done. How are politicians going to repair the damage of 49,000 babies dead? It’s a big task ahead of them. What amazes me is there’s no repentance from Colin Burke for what he did. He’s made excuses for the legislation.

“If you read the reports from Dublin and Cloyne, the big thing that comes up was that Canon law was not followed and child abusers got away with murder. The greatest child abuse is the murder of the child in the womb. And we should really use this Canon law to help people to make the decision: Do you want to be Catholic or not? Do you want to go to heaven or not?”

While the Association of Catholic Priests condemned the communion refusal, Senator Ronan Mullen said “the decision whether to give Holy Communion to politicians who support or promote abortion or other major social evils is a sensitive one that involves important pastoral and other questions. It’s not for me to say whether a priest in a given situation made the right or wrong decision.”