Senior church-goers across the county have called on Rome officials to declare the unlawful eating of Christmas ham, by younger members of the family after returning home from midnight mass or a heavy session in the local on Christmas Eve, as a mortal sin.

Hundreds of parents have signed the petition which will be posted first class to the Vatican in the morning, according to recently appointed Coalisland deacon Finnian Farrelly.

Deacon Farrelly put meat on the bones of the argument:

“Parents like myself are sick and tired of waking up on Christmas morning only to find that the children have made a bollocks of the ham. Chunks are hacked off willy-nilly and sometimes the turkey has also been assaulted if the weans are intoxicated enough. Days of preparation down the tubes and you can’t get really mad about it on that day of all days.”

Many parents have taken matters into their own hands with a rise in firearms reportedly procured all over the county. So perverse had the sale of ammunition to minors become that it was ad nauseam. Everybody knew that minors were on the hunt to purchase everything AR15 related and spread havoc. Locks for ovens and increased sales of sophisticated alarm systems also suggest the war on ham burglars has upped a notch in 2016.

“I might be a man of the cloth but I have no reservations of firing a warning shot over the heads of my children if they come in stocious and start sniffing around the ham. They’re in their 30s; they should know better. Especially the sober ones who just went to mass.”

In 2015, over 200 dinners were ruined in the north of the country when not enough ham was left to feed the entire family on Christmas day, resulting in fist fights and trifles being fired across tables.

The PSNI have called for calm if the Vatican refuse to acknowledge the request.