A Catholic priest shocked his congregation last Sunday when he set fire to a photo of former Pope Benedict during Sunday Mass, telling gatherers that the now retired pontiff had abandoned his flock.
“It was wonderful,” the Rev. Andrea Maggi from Santo Stefano Protomartire church in the small northern village of Castel Vittorio, Italy, told reporters in defense of his act. He even compared Benedict to Captain Francesco Schettino, who is accused of abandoning the Costa Concordia cruise ship that capsized off the Italian coast last year. Ouch!
“Before starting the homily, the priest took the photo of the pope and he said this is not a pope, this is not a shepherd, he abandoned his flock,” local mayor Gian Stefano Orengo said, adding that Maggi then used a candle flame to set the photo of Benedict ablaze.
The act prompted half of the congregation to walk out and was reminiscent of Sinead O’Connor’s infamous ripping of the photo of Pope John Paul II during a 1992 episode of “Saturday Night Live.”
The bold and unexpected act has now put Rev. Maggi’s future with the church in question.
