Is it really un-Christian to listen to social media gossip?

‘Let’s get out of here,’ I whispered, almost in tears, as the priest finished his horrible homily.

Standing at the altar in front of a stained-glass window showing Jesus with his arms outstretched, this priest was telling us all off for what had happened in Dublin, three hours’ drive away.

I suppose we expected a bit of a lecture, going by the speeches about Palestine that we had been subjected to in previous weeks. We did so want to fit in by going to Mass, which had been noted by our Irish neighbours as a good thing.

But this was too much. We couldn’t be doing with an extended political manifesto extolling the virtues of Leo Varadkar and open borders on a Sunday morning.

We sat there stone-faced waiting, because we were sure, at some point, this man of God would offer a prayer for the five-year-old girl stabbed in the street, who, so far as we had been allowed to know by the media coverage, was lying critically injured in hospital.