Father Brian D'Arcy

I didn't think I'd ever see the day that a critical article about Father Brian D'Arcy would appear in an Irish newspaper, but today Today Ronan Mullen provides one. And, it's not too bad considering how dangerous it is to take issue with someone who (a) is loved by the media and (b) gives the impression of being more fragile than an egg shell.

I never had any real issue with Fr. D'Arcy, but he does irritate me at times with his hipper than thou attitude with regards to the Church. He strikes me as a decent man, but one who could only barely (and occasionally not) conceal his annoyance/anger/shame at the hierarchy and many of his fellow priests. He's rarely slow to put the boot in when the Church is taking a battering.

Here's Mullen:

How was it that he was never to be found on the unpopular side of a controversial argument, that he never defended his Church against unfair criticism, and that the only people he criticised over the years were erstwhile authority figures such as Cardinal Daly or the Vatican - people who were, by then, easy to criticise.

Mullen then adds that Father D'Arcy has also been critical of young priests, referring to them as "underdeveloped right-wing tyrants in the making". Such views are nothing more than the exasperated utterances of a man whose dream of a flower-power Church is fading before his eyes.

Father D'Arcy - yesterday's priest.