Irish Catholic Priest shares gay porn

Last week, Catholic priest Martin McVeigh inadvertently shared a collection of "16 indecent images of men" with a group of parents. Naturally, the priest claims he has no knowledge of the "offending imagery." Worth noting is that this occurred just a few days before (ahem) Palm Sunday. From the Huffington Post:

A Northern Irish priest has sparked a local uproar after accidentally displaying a series of pornographic gay images to a group of parents during at a primary school meeting.

As the BBC is reporting, Father Martin McVeigh projected 16 "indecent images of men" onto a screen as part of a Powerpoint presentation during a March 26 meeting for parents in preparation for First Holy Communion for their children at St. Mary's School in Pomeroy. One eight-year-old child is also reported to have been present during the meeting, according to The Ulster Herald.

"He was visibly shaken and flustered," one parent who was present during the meeting told the BBC. "He gave no explanation or apology to the group and bolted out of the room. The co-ordinator and the teachers then continued with the presentation." The parent also noted that those who saw the pictures "were horrified and distracted."

"Martin McVeigh, Northern Irish Priest, Accidentally Displayed Gay Porn During First Communion Meeting"

• [RedShirt77]

  Oops….

  Now will they fire him for misuse of a work computer or for being gay?

  Either way, I assume this guy will have a better life outside the priesthood.

  • [Mordicai]

     In this guy’s defense…isn’t EVERYTHING a work computer when you are a priest?  Like, the church provides everything you own, yeah?

    • [ChicagoD]

      Close. Many priests have private cars and some personal possessions. If they live in the rectory the internet connection is almost surely owned by “work” even if the computer might not be.

      • [Brainspore]

        New Organizational Policy:
        Internet connections in rectories “A” through “D” are for official church business only. Recreational use is available in the E-rectory.

        • [noah django]

          Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ
          I see what you did there

  • [Brainspore]

    Now will they fire him for misuse of a work computer or for being gay?

    Technically priests are allowed to be gay, they’re just not supposed to have any kind sex. Presumably wanking to gay porn would fall within the “no-no” realm. Extra double bad points for letting the kids see it.

    • [Ipo]

       Techncally a catholic priest cannot even know if he is gay, since it is forbidden to him to have any lustful thoughts at all, unless he is married. 

      • [Brainspore]

        Not quite. It’s considered a sin to dwell upon, take pleasure from, or act upon lustful thoughts—but not to have them. At least that’s what they were saying back when I was a practicing Catholic.

        • [Ipo]

           You were not a priest I take it.    =] 
          Look it up, it’s their rule. 

        • [Brainspore]

          @boingboing-acc24295a031cec540665b451bde7e07:disqus : Well like I said, that’s not the way it was taught to me. I’m sure there are differing interpretations of the rule though.

        • [ChicagoD]

          Ipo, it’s not their rule. I know plenty of priests and know what the Church teaches unmarried people. It is what Brainspore said, not what you said.

        • [Ipo]

          I take it that you were not ordained.    =] 
          Its their rule.   Celibacy excludes not only libidinous acts, but also sinful thoughts or desires of the flesh. 

        • [Brainspore]

          @boingboing-acc24295a031cec540665b451bde7e07:disqus :
          

          Celibacy excludes not only libidinous acts, but also sinful thoughts or desires of the flesh.

          Ah, I think this is the point we’re stuck on. A lustful thought only becomes a “sinful” thought (in the eyes of the church) if the person having it dwells upon or takes pleasure from it. Involuntary thoughts are not considered a violation of celibacy.

    • [Jonathan Roberts]

      Extra double bad points for letting the MEDIA see it.
      Fixed that for you.

• [ChicagoD]

  First, isn’t he British, rather than Irish? Isn’t that the whole point of Northern Ireland?

  Second, what a disaster. I wonder how many parishes have lost great priests because they were ultimately conflicted between appropriate, adult sexual interests and the demands of the priesthood. I know of at least one parish in Chicago where that was ABSOLUTELY the case and both the Church and parish are poorer for it.

  • [SamSam]

    A person who comes from Ireland, the island, is Irish. That person may or may not also be British.

  • [Robert]

    Well, just remember: there’s only one letter of difference between parish and pariah.

• [Nathan Hornby]

  Poor guy.

  Although if he didn’t sign himself up to a cult he could be gay without so much shame and self-denial.

  That said, he’d still likely get a telling off for showing a bunch of porn during a primary school meeting.

  • [Cowicide]

    He was just preparing everyone for hairy palm Sunday.

• [phisrow]

  According to the police report, it was 100% adult, legal, gay porn. No way can he expect a nice, quiet, reassignment to a new location…

• [satn]

  “The parent also noted that those who saw the pictures “were horrified and distracted”"

  I can understand why they would be horrified, but why distracted? Is it something about Christians that makes gay porn stick in their mind, turning it into a consuming obsession?

  • [corydodt]

     Hmm.

    Sitting here, I can understand why they’d be distracted, but not horrified. It would be very distracting to have something like that happen. I’d be thinking about what might happen to the priest and speculating on the reactions of the people in the room rather than paying attention to some BS slideshow.

    But horrified? No.

    • [nettdata]

      Depends.

      As a straight guy, I could imagine being distracted by pics of some guy with a monster unit, in a “woah… seriously?” kind of way.  That could be construed as “distracted”, I’d say.

      I can also imagine a woman, who might well imagine being on the receiving end of said monster unit, being horrified at the prospect.  Not that I have first hand experience of witnessing said horrified look on a woman’s face, mind you.  *sigh*

      Just sayin.

      • [kairos]

        Can I just step in here and register how ridiculous it is for people to be arguing over whether it makes more sense to be exclusively ‘horrified’ or ‘distracted’ after your priest just tossed some hot porn up on his PowerPoint guide to the Sacraments?

        I love that you just used the phrase ‘monster unit,’ though.

        • [corydodt]

           Yes, we should be arguing over whether it would be “hilarious” or “funny, but in a nervous-awkward way”.

        • [nettdata]

           Unless it was a Priest of the Temples of Syrinx, I find it hard to take them seriously, so it all just runs downhill from there.

    • [Ipo]

       Could they be flabbergasted? 

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        Given the context, that would be better than gobsmacked.

        • [corydodt]

          There is a distinct possibility that they could be blown away.

        • [nettdata]

           You spelled “knobsmacked” wrong.

  • [ChicagoD]

    Oh, to have it be a slide show for Communion. You know, taking the body into your mouth . . . that just isn’t going to end well.

    • [phisrow]

      You know that jesus fellow. Half God, all man, and a lot further into ‘vore than most of us could stand…

      • [andygates]

         Godvore! It’s the Eucharist in slurpy form. Don’t forget to swallow.

      • [Feargus Stewart]

        Holy Jesus fucking God!

        Is it incest?  – or masturbation?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    but why distracted?

    I’m sorry.  What were you saying?

• [Teller]

  Once in Northern Ireland, the computer might’ve exploded when turned on. This is progress.

  • [Hamish Grant]

    somebody set us up the bomb!

• [voiceinthedistance]

  My question:  was it a single slide with a collage of 16 images, or did he have one offending image pop up, and then he panicked and clicked through 15 more times until he came to an appropriate slide to continue with?  It is way better, in the little movie that plays in my head, in the latter version.  Much more substantial “horrified and distracted” reaction from the crowd that way.

  • [SamSam]

    True. I was wondering why someone would have a slide with a 4×4 grid of porn images on it myself.

    • [David Pescovitz]

      A “collage” sounds funnier though.

      • [Nathan Hornby]

         It would be delightfully twee for a Catholic Priest to arrange his gay porn in collage format.

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          Scrapcocking.

  • [tewsday]

    I was wondering this, too.  How did he get through 16 images before somebody stopped him?  Was it a GIF?

    • [bkad]

       Possibly he was an inexpert powerpoint user. I have been to more presentations than I can count where the presenter doesn’t know how to go to previous slides, and several where the presenter does not know how to exit the presentation except by clicking all the way through to the end. Don’t forget how many computer skills you are taking for granted!

  • [Symbiote]

    I suspect he plugged in the memory stick, and the Windows “Autorun” thing saw a collection of images and automatically opened the image viewing program, with a 4×4 grid showing.

• [Brainspore]

  Stupid PowerPoint. I can never get those templates to work right either.

• [Ben Ahmady]

  @ChicagoD:disqus Northern Ireland is one of the four constituent countries of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland”, but the demonym “British” is only applied to people living on “Great Britain” – which is comprised of Scotland, Wales and England only – whilst people living in NI are referred to as “Irish” because they live on the island of “Ireland”.

  • [ChicagoD]

    That’s funny. My Irish relatives in Chicago use the term “Irish” very differently.

  • [arboreal]

    There are both unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland. Most of the nationalists that I know would identify as Irish rather than British.

  • [noah django]

     ”A demonym ( /ˈdɛmənɪm/), also referred to as a gentilic, is a name for a resident of a locality. A demonym is usually – though not always – derived from the name of the locality;[1] thus, the demonym for the people of Britain is British, and the demonym for the people of Italy is Italian, yet the one used for the people of the Netherlands is Dutch… The term demonym is not widely employed or known outside geographical circles and does not yet appear in mainstream dictionaries.”–Wikipedia

    • [Ben Ahmady]

      I don’t know if you’re criticising me for being a pseud or complimenting me on my use of language?

      • [noah django]

         no animosity whatsoever.  i had to look it up, was pleased to find that I wasn’t (necessarily) a dumb-ass since it isn’t included in most dictionaries, and since i’d done the the legwork i copied it for everyone else.

        i like words.  (*≧▽≦)オハツでっす♪

  • [shirley mcmillan]

    This is incorrect. British can apply to those living in Northern Ireland as well. I am both British and Irish. I was born and live in NI, hold a British passport and live on the island of Ireland.

    • [Ben Ahmady]

      Just to be clear I’m certainly not making any kind of political statement here … According to Wikipedia’s article on the UK, the adjective “British” can indeed be applied to Northern Irish people in the context of citizenship.

      • [shirley mcmillan]

        Sure, I wasn’t making a political statement either. It’s just the way it is! :-)

    • [Ben Ahmady]

      I think we should invent the word “United Kingdomish” to clear up any confusion about demonyms/nationalities/citizenships.

      • [Scott Conroy]

        I think “United Kingdomish” would be a great book title!  Cory, does Ben get special thanks if you use it?

    • [Nathan Hornby]

      You don’t hold a British passport, you hold a passport for ‘The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. So you’re from the UK, but not from Britain, technically speaking, as Britain is the bits that aren’t Northern Ireland.

      I don’t care if you’re British either way, or what the dictionaries say, just wanted to point that out.

      • [shirley mcmillan]

        (This was a comment I tried to delete but I can’t delete it.)

      • [shirley mcmillan]

        Sorry you are wrong. Great Britain refers to the bits that aren’t NI, but Britain refers to all of the UK. And my passport states ‘Nationality: British’.

        • [Ben Ahmady]

          You’re right, Shirley: “British”, it seems, has indeed come to be used as an adjective – I don’t know about “demonym” ;) – to mean anyone from the UK. Meaning the UK and NI.

          Though it would make more sense to me if your passport stated your nationality as “Northern Irish/British” – but then I’m someone to whom it would make more sense if we had similar measures for the English, Welsh, and Scottish so that’s irrelevant.

      • [Symbiote]

        A passport for “The UK of GB and NI” is a British passport.  That’s exactly what British means!

  • [Symbiote]

    “Great Britain” is an island, with no political meaning itself.  People living on, say, Shetland or the Isle of Wight are also British (and quite likely Scottish and English, respectively), yet those are different islands.

    The “British Isles” includes all the islands — Great Britain, Ireland, Shetland, Wight, Man, etc, etc.  That’s also a geographic term.

    “British”, as people living in Europe use the word (i.e. usually politically), means “a citizen of the United Kingdom”, so includes most people born in Northern Ireland, England, Shetland etc.  However, it excludes those places that aren’t part of the UK — the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man.

    People from the Republic of Ireland are Irish.  People from the Isle of Man are Manx.  People from England are English.  People from Northern Ireland are Northern Irish.

    (Irish and British people are also EU citizens, but Manx people aren’t — the Isle of Man is not part of the EU.)

    • [shirley mcmillan]

      People from Northern Ireland can also call themselves Irish. We can also choose to have an Irish passport if we want.

• [zeppo]

  If that’s what he was doing on Palm Sunday, imagine what he was looking at on … Fap Tuesday.

• [lorq]

  Talk about the return of the repressed.  Puts me in mind of author John Crowley’s comments, on his blog, in relation to remarks by an advocate for the Catholic Church cited in the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/us/catholic-church-pressures-victims-network-with-subpoenas.html :

  ‘From NYTimes today, about Catholic Church attempts to embroil SNAP, a support group of those abused by priests, in legal complications:  The spokesman for a Catholic Church advocacy group:  

  “Mr. Donohue said leading bishops he knew had resolved to fight back more aggressively against the group: ‘The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.’”

  Well thank goodness for that.’

  • [ChicagoD]

    Meh. Donahue is a crank and a moron.

• [eselqueso]

  Maybe one of the slides was supposed to be of the body of Christ for the kiddiewinkies to commune with?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Did someone say ‘body of Christ’?

    • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

       I’ll see your picture and raise you the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence interviewing them.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKUQI9RAD60&feature=relmfu

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        Jesus Fucking Christ! Bummer that MuscleBear Jesus didn’t make the finals.

        • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

           They always gotta try and keep the bears down…

• [duc chau]

  Okay… let’s not sweep the whole “Palm Sunday” joke under the rug here. That’s quality material! It should be recognized as such.

  So, if you liked the joke, you can just give me a +1 Like to give it some love.

   (There prizes for Likes aren’t there?)

  • [Tim Drage]

    No you’re thinking of youtube.

• [noah django]

  In my head, these images were put into his presentation by one of the altar boys that he touched.  We’ll never know, but how awesome would that be, eh?

• [Arthur Delaney]

  Attendees of the presentation were noticed gnashing their teeth and tearing their hair.

• [chris jimson]

  Well, at least he “shared” it,  in grade school I was taught “sharing is good.”

  So there’s that.

• [aeroplane]

  Well, at least it wasn’t child pornography.  Well done Catholics!  Let’s see if we can keep the next sex scandal within the law as well.

• [timmaguire]

  How many people make power point presentations of their porn? I’m going to bet $5.00 US that this turns out to be an instance of life imitating 80′s teen movies.

  • [ChicagoD]

    It would be a convenient way to carry it and view it.

  • [Preston Sturges]

    Nobody told him about Photo Viewer or Photo Gallery?  Did he want fancier transitions, or what? 

    • [voiceinthedistance]

      Yes, he may very well have a fancy for fancy transitions.  Perhaps 80′s evening news wipes and dissolves put the edge in his otherwise run of the mill homosexual fantasies. That puts the power in PowerPoint, just thinking about it.

• [M S Stanley]

  Did pictures of Bishop Brennan’s arse appear in the slideshow?

• [SedanChair]

  Somebody give this guy a potato.

  • [Preston Sturges]

    Oh is this in reference the potato-in-the-colon story last week? 

    • [Brainspore]

      Different situation entirely. PowerPoint-Porn-Presenting Priest is not the same thing as a Vitiated Vegisexual Vicar.

• [yri]

  All these priests get such a bad rap – I knew an Irish Catholic priest who was perfectly normal; so much so, he was dating my sister-in-law. They had a perfectly healthy sex life.

  /irony off

  You know how creepy it is when you go to a family cookout and your sister’s date is a Catholic priest? Well, pretty darn.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    How did your brother feel about it?

  • [wysinwyg]

     Well he just has to confess, right?  “Forgive me brother (’cause he’s clergy) for I have sinned.  I’ve been engaged in a loving and successful sexual relationship with a wonderful young woman for several months.  We’d love to get married, in fact, but…well, you know.”

• [therealitycheck]

  Ten bucks says he did it on purpose, either to “burn his bridges” when coming out, or because this was the only way he could allow himself to resolve all the cognitive dissonance in his self-image.

• [CSBD]

  The first rule of Catholic Priest Gay Porn Club is:  You never talk about CPGPC.

  The second  rule of Catholic Priest Gay Porn Club is:  You never talk about CPGPC. 

  The third rule of Catholic Priest Gay Porn Club is: don’t show a room of parents your happy pix… it may horrify and or distract them

  • [Preston Sturges]

    Well Fight Club was clearly a metaphor for alienation, both social and sexual. He describes the smacking sounds of wet flesh, the yelling like speaking in tongues.  Because the story is about a guy who meets his perfect soul mate (Marla), but is so busy dissociating he does not recognize her, has to have out of body experiences to have sex with her. 

• [$19428857]

  The priest was pwned. Even if they were his photos, there is no way to accidentally get the “wrong” pictures into  a Power Point presentation without someone deliberately  putting them into the presentation.  Somebody changed the slide for him. There is enough antipathy towards the Irish Catholic clergy that there would be plenty of motivation by someone to pull such a prank. The priest wouldn’t even have to be gay or a pedophile to attract the pwnage, as so many seem to assume that all Catholic priests are one or both. “Tain’t so, and this comes from an ex-Catholic, now Unitarian-Universalist whose minister is openly gay (and loving it).

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    If I were innocent, I would say something like What the fuck? or Most precious blood of the lamb! and try to figure out what happened.  His running out of the room without saying anything doesn’t support your theory.

    • [Preston Sturges]

      “I rebuke you, throbbing tumescence of Satan!!!”

      Actually that was sort of my catch phrase in high school.

    • [Nathan Hornby]

      Unless he was running away from the porn.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        Is there a video? Might there be Yakety Sax?

    • [edgarhjelte]

      Like you I can only make guesswork, but my first thought was that some kid pranked him for teh lulz. Supposedly he then realized that he was done for and fled in terror.

    • [AlexG55]

       Possibly the porn was already on his computer and someone put it in the PowerPoint as a prank. When he saw it come up on the screen, he recognised it as his and panicked.

    • [ChicagoD]

      If we’re making up stories, I say that he freaked because he was *in* the porn. It was literally *his* porn.

• [Neo]

  “the Lord works in mysterious ways?”

• [Felton / Moderator]

  Hennimoooooore!!!

• [Sean Burns]

  A gay Irish priest in New Delhi
  had the Lord’s Prayer tattooed on his belly.
  By the time that the Brahman
  had got to the amen
  He’d blown both salvation and Kelly.
  Michael O’Donoghue

• [BBNinja]

  You can’t catch me gay thoughts! :P /tomcruise

• [Preston Sturges]

  Creepiest AV club ever….

• [ChicagoD]

  I mean, really, have you ever been to any meeting not about gay porn in which gay porn was shown? I have not been, but I think it would distract me from the rest of the meeting.

  “Wait, did I just see porn? Am I in the right room?”

• [John Hardin]

  “a meeting for parents in preparation for First Holy Communion for their children at St. Mary’s School” so, yeah, why -would- you assume that everybody in the audience was a Christian, you awful bigot, you.

• [Guest]

   I blame it on Tyler Durden.

• [John Hardin]

  “have you ever been to any meeting not about gay porn” What is that you do for a living, exactly?