Manchester, UK - A Roman Catholic priest has told his congregration that he has a four-year-old son, and has stood down from the Church.
Father Peter McDonough, 54, who for 27 years served the deaf community in Manchester and Salford, and is himself profoundly deaf, made the announcement at a sign-language Mass at St Patrick’s Church, Collyhurst.
He said Mass on Sunday and then asked the congregation to sit down as he had something he needed to tell them. He then spent the next two hours explaining his situation.
Monsignor Mark Davies, Vicar General for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford, said: “The reaction was obviously shock but most of all, sadness. There were many tears.”
The identity of neither the mother nor the child has been disclosed.
Father McDonough, who was ordained in Manchester by the late Pope John Paul II on his historic visit to Britain in 1982, made his decision to leave the Church after a “time of reflection” and after speaking to the Bishop of Salford, the Right Rev Terence Brain.
Mgr Davies added: “He’s looking towards fulfilling his responsibilities as a father to the child; one of the first things he will do will be to look for paid employment.”