Chai Brady
Fr Bryan Shortall Chai Brady and Matthew Carlson
Church-goers are “upset and angry” after it was revealed a group of people are ordering tickets for the Pope’s Mass only to destroy them, according to a parish priest.
The ‘Say Nope to The Pope’ group has attracted the interest of 5,000 people on Facebook, with many people posting that they are ordering significant numbers of tickets but won’t use them, as a form of protest.
Fr Bryan Shortall of Halston Street Parish told The Irish Catholic: “Parishioners are upset and angry, and disappointed that a group – we don’t know who they are – would quite frankly try to spoil, disturb and usurp people’s chances to see Pope Francis when he comes to Ireland.”
Actions
He said their actions were “designed to deprive ordinary people from expressing their Faith” and that the Church seems to be becoming “more and more marginalised”.
The priest said although many of his parishioners have secured tickets, they have been affected by the actions of the group. “They see the bigger picture, they see that there is a prevailing negativity out there, especially when it was officially announced Pope Francis would come,” he said.
Founders of the social media group have purported that it’s not their “intent” to stop people attending or practicing their religion.
However with fewer than 20,000 tickets left out of 500,000 [at the time of writing], it appears the event will be sold out. This would mean it could be quite likely that people genuinely looking for tickets would be unable to attend due to the actions of the ‘Say Nope to the Pope’ group.
Parishioner Carmel Keogh said it was “alarming” reading that people were pretending to hire buses to secure large amounts of tickets, as well as organising to burn them.
“What is their aim? I wouldn’t mind if they decided to come to Dublin on the day and stand with whatever form of protest that they have.
“But to actually frustrate other people’s access to a day that they want to enjoy, to me really is not legitimate,” she said.
Incitement
“And I mean what if we had friends and family coming from other parts of the world and we wanted to celebrate with them. This is not just for Irish Catholics, this is for Catholics all over the world. It is the World Meeting of Families (WMOF), not just Irish Catholics. But I think…it does fall somewhere in the incitement to hatred.”
WMOF organisers in Dublin have expressed confidence however that their methods of screening out false ticket orders is solid.