(OPINION) A Catholic priest has been reprimanded after telling his stunned worshippers that Jesus Christ had an erection when he died on the cross.
Father Thomas McHale, the priest at Our Blessed Lady Immaculate in Blackhill, Consett, County Durham, took to the pulpit as normal on Good Friday.
However, the 53-year-old, who is from America, is understood to have told the congregation, roughly 100 Catholic residents, that blood would have rushed to the lower body of Jesus as a result of the violent execution method of crucifixion.
A parishioner told The Times: ‘He told people Jesus died with an erection. The church was shocked. There were young families there.’
Father McHale is understood to have not lost his job despite complaints from parishioners about the ‘vulgar’ Easter weekend sermon.
A spokesman for the diocese of Hexham & Newcastle told the publication: ‘A complaint was received and has been investigated in keeping with our diocesan complaints policy. The investigation has been very recently completed and the complaint is upheld.’
In April, a Catholic ministry hastily pulled the plug on the world’s first ‘AI priest’ after it suggested baptizing a baby in Gatorade and solemnly advised one woman on how to prepare for marriage to her brother.
Californian advocacy group Catholic Answers created Father Justin to ‘provide users with faithful and educational answers’ about Catholicism.
But the bearded avatar quickly went rogue, promising to forgive users their sins, offering them confession and claiming it had been a Catholic priest for 25 years.
Father Justin has now been defrocked and recast as a lay Catholic adviser after a storm of protest from believers outraged at the ‘creepy’ experiment.
Last year another pastor was also embroiled in another row for outsourcing his Sunday service to Artificial Intelligence.
Jay Cooper of Violet Crown City Church in North Austin decided to see if the transformative technology was up to the task of inspiring his congregation through a complete one-hour service.
The Methodist minister asked Chat GPT to come up with prayers, a sermon, and an original song based on the sermon for the church which promises members ‘a safe space to explore life’s big questions’.
