Melbourne, Australia, Aug 8, 2012 / 03:02 am
The Archbishop of Melbourne denounced a local newspaper for its story about a breakaway group of "Inclusive Catholics," led by a renegade priest who allegedly gave Holy Communion to a dog.
"That anyone would feed the Eucharist to a dog is an abomination," Archbishop Denis J. Hart of Melbourne said in an Aug. 6 statement, issued by the archdiocese in response to a report the same day in The Age newspaper.
The paper, he said, had mocked Catholic beliefs by featuring the incident, which occurred at a service conducted by the "Inclusive Catholics" group. Its leader, Father Greg Reynolds, resigned from the Melbourne archdiocese in 2011 and does not have permission to offer Mass or serve as a priest.
"A first-time visitor arrived late at the Inclusive Catholics service in South Yarra with a large and well-trained German shepherd," writer Barney Zwartz wrote in his account of the group's Aug. 5 service.