‘Incredible response’ to Passionist priest’s stolen oils

A prominent Northern priest has spoken of being moved by “an incredible response” after he revealed that the holy oil container he had used since his ordination was stolen over the weekend.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Passionist Fr Gary Donegan, who became a household name when helping shield schoolchildren from loyalist mobs during 2001’s Holy Cross Ardoyne dispute, described how his Mass kit was stolen from his car while he was in Dublin for the All-Ireland football finals replay and had stayed overnight to watch the Fermanagh ladies team play in the junior final.

Upsetting

“There was a lot of stuff gone, because basically my car is my home because I do a lot of travelling,” he said. “A lot of the things that are gone are annoying and upsetting, but the fact is that in the glove compartment was a little bag, and in it I carry the rite of anointing which would have been used for years and years.”

Explaining that the bag contained the text of the rite of anointing, rosary beads, a pyx for carrying Communion hosts, a stole, and some Vicks to protect his nose if at a “rough scene”, as well as a relic of St Charles of Mount Argus, Fr Donegan said its most treasured content was a holy oil stock given to him as an ordination present 28 years ago.

“It was a wee leatherette thing, and had been everywhere in the last 28 years. I had anointed my grandparents with it, my little nephew baby Michael who had died, I had climbed the tower of Holy Cross after a young man had hung himself and anointed him from it up there,” he said, describing using it when anointing young men who had died in road accidents and in riots.

Touched

“It was basically everywhere with me,” he said, describing how he had been touched by how within a few hours over 2,500 people had read a post about it on Facebook by his friend Brian McKee, with kind words from such individuals as Fr Liam Lawton and onetime Dublin footballer Ger Brennan.

Commenting on how he had since had an opportunity to talk about it on RTÉ’s Liveline, he said, “It’s ironic that I could get seven minutes talking about anointing and sacred stuff on prime-time radio, so some good came out of it.”