BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE

Modern Look

Controversial parish priest Father Dermott Connor, launched a radical new mass this morning, aimed at bringing mass to the masses in the 21^st century.

The 38-year old priest of St Matthew’s Parish Church in Cornamaddy near Omagh, explained,

“We’re ringing the changes. Young ones won’t go. Weekly dues are down. We need to raise money to renovate the church tower. And to replace the snooker table in the vestry”.

The priest has raised eyebrows amongst his flock with some of his far-reaching changes.

“We brought the communion wafers bang up to date and switched them to Pringles. The young ones loved it. We kept it tasteful and stuck to the conventional ready salted flavour, nothing flash like thon barbeque ones. Although I did toy with the idea of doing ‘Jesus n Onion’ flavour. And ‘Exalt n Vinegar’”.

Fr Connor was however keen to show his respect for the usual traditions.

“Of course we still did the Death Notices but we changed them to ‘Death Shout Outs’, to liven things up a wee bit for the dearly departed. We have to be sensitive to the traditions of the church but also alive to the modern times. But we can combine both. Which is why I think turning the queue for communion into a big conga line was the best idea although the replacement hips brigade found the going tough. And Mrs O’Halloran has been practising Sister Sledge’s ‘We Are Family’ on the church organ for a few weeks now and we’ll give that a rattle next week”.

The forward-thinking priest has also replaced the angelus bells with a ‘bass cannon’, a 30-second blast of hardcore dance trance music that’ll get its first airing tonight. 88 year old Kitty McCabe gave her view:

“Ah he’s some bollox that boy. It’d be more in his line to de-modernise it. I really miss kissing the Bishop’s ring and the Latin. Also, the priests used to turn their backs to you and we could lark about behind them swapping snuff and winking at far out cousins. Though them Pringles are nice enough now but why not a slice of Veda”.

Other ideas being considered include replacing the offering of the the sign of peace, usually a weekly handshake with people in neighbouring seats, with high-fiving each other, and putting MTV into the confession box.