Use of Grindr at Irish Seminary Prompts Archbishop to Transfer Trainee Priests

In the 1995 film "Jeffrey," Nathan Lane plays a showtune-loving New York gay priest who says "I'm a CATHOLIC priest. Historically, that falls somewhere between chorus boy and florist." It took a while, but that memo has finally reached Ireland.

A "poisonous atmosphere" and culture of gay sex (not to mention the use of the hook-up app Grindr) was enough to prompt the archbishop of Dublin to stop sending his student priests to be trained in Ireland's oldest seminary.

According to The Guardian, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, archbishop of Dublin and trustee of St. Patrick's College in Maynooth is advising his seminarians to either be trained at Irish College in Rome or work in parishes in Dublin.

"There are allegations on different sides," Martin said. "One is that there is a homosexual, a gay culture, that students have been using an app called Grindr, which is a gay dating app, which would be inappropriate for seminarians, not just because they are trained to be celibate priests but because an app like that is something which would be fostering promiscuous sexuality, which is certainly not in any way the mature vision of sexuality one would expect a priest to understand."

The move to stop sending student priests to Maynooth has caused a rift within Ireland's Catholic church.

Speaking on RT�'s Morning Ireland, Father Brendan Hoban said he found the decision remarkable given that Dr Martin has said that students should be prepared [for the priesthood] in their own culture.

"I think he's unfair to Maynooth," Hoban said. "I think he will damage Maynooth by what he's doing."

Fr Hoban said�the Archbishop is transferring three students while Dublin has 99 parishes and over a million Catholics and only one diocesan priest aged under 40.

"It seems extraordinary that attention is being given to moving deck chairs on the Titanic rather than getting to the issues that are important."

In 2011, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York's archdiocese was sent to Maynooth to investigate allegations of gay sexual activity. According to Hoban, Dolan said in his report that there was no evidence to support the allegations.