To think this behaviour regarding Pope's visit to Ireland is despicable

[user1485342611]

The Pope is visiting Ireland in August and two public Masses will be held. For Health and Safety reasons numbers attending have to be limited so free tickets are being allocated, on line, on a first come first served basis.

People who object to his visit are deliberately buying up thousands of tickets, booking in fake coach tours etc to ensure a low turn out and, in the process, deny tickets to those who want to attend.

AIBU to think that, whatever your religious beliefs, this is petty, vindictive, intolerant and downright despicable behaviour>

Why in the world do they have such a terrible ticketing system? It's so easy to put in place measures to stop multiple tickets being purchased!

Tbh the Catholic Church has done some despicable things in Ireland so I’m not at all surprised by this. They’ve destroyed thousands of lives, so to me the protest is understandable. That being said I think this pope is a good man.

That is ridiculous surely it would be more sensible to allocate tickets throughchurches or church websites that have passwords.

It's a pretty nasty way of protesting in my view Sleepy. It seems to be quite dictatorial - "If I don't approve, no one's going".

I'm a N.Irish prod and I'd go to see the current pope. He seems like a great guy.

Yeah, I'm not at all fond of the Catholic church but I'm impressed with the current guy. Given some of his (relatively) progressive statements he's come out with I'd be encouraging more conservative catholics to go and listen instead of stopping them!

I think it’s a relatively peaceful protest and now it’s been discovered I’m sure they will stop it and distribute tickets fairly

I think we should have a big festival in Marley Park and call it 'Nope'. That would be a much more fun form of protest : )

I actually think that's quite inventive.

The Catholic Church and it's representatives are responsible for some truly terrible things In very recent times. No wonder people want to protest.

But agree it's not on.

The Roman Catholic Church systematically abused children, raping them and moving paedophile priests around unchecked.

They set up brutal homes for unmarried mothers whom they enslaved and organized the widespread illegal sale and trafficking of babies to America. They buried children and their mothers in mass graves, like war criminals buried genocide victims.

They denied they raped children and sold and trafficked babies, and shoved their dead bodies in unmarked pits, even though the evidence was there.

And let’s not go into to the casual corporal and mental abuse meted out in the schools on a daily basis by frustrated nuns and brothers.

Personally I think it’s outrageous not to appreciate that some people might feel the Pope is unwelcome, as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

They are justified to protest against the criminals who did these things.
It’s righteous anger imho.

petty, vindictive, intolerant and downright despicable

In keeping with the history of the church then, I'd say.

Where's the evidence that people are doing this?

www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/pope-francis-ireland-visit-tickets-12254402

I don't think they would be able to get their hands on that many tickets.

I recommend everybody watch No Country for Women if they want to see how the RC church treated the women of Ireland.

This is the same pope who called abortion the “white glove” equivalent of the Nazi-era eugenics programme. Yeah, really worth of respect.....

Ah, good old Liberal tolerance again. Nice to see religious tolerance and respect for the views of others in action again.

Booting politicians out of restaurants, sabotaging Christian events, protesting about democratically elected leaders, trying to sabotage the results of a perfectly legal referendum and being able to tolerate anything but dissent.

Wonderful.

Yes, it's a very 'lefty intolerant' way of L dealing with things: 'I disagree with you, therefore you have no right to express your opinion or desires'.

Its totally unfair on the people who do want to go.

Yes the Catholic Church has done some utterly fucked up stuff in Ireland, but if people want to see the Pope then it's not up to anyone else to stop them.

It's totally out of order, but I'm sure they think they are being oh so clever.

I couldn't give a flying shite. The roman Catholic church has ruined tens of thousands of womens lives here and you're having a hissy fit over people buying up some tickets?
Please.

We tolerated things for far too long.

Most practising Catholics abhor the behaviour of many of its members in the past. But they still believe the basic tenets of their religion, and want to bring Catholicism forward in a more tolerant way than some of those acting in its name have done in recent decades.

Surely those who are trying to sabotage that are behaving in as intolerant and close minded way as the very people they're protesting about.

Again, where's the evidence? A poster said it was happening so it must be true.

What’s the evidence for this, OP?

I think it will send a very visual image of modern day Ireland. Fewer practicing Catholics, so let us get religion out of schools (it is heavily interwoven in both primary and secondary schools) and have it reflect actual modern day Ireland. If this is what is actually happening with the tickets, I think it is very subtle and very clever.

It's been reported in the Irish Times JaneJeffers.

I can't do the link but here's the first few paras. It's also being discussed on Boards.ie at the moment.

A man who says he will not be attending the pope’s Mass in the Phoenix Park claims he has booked 800 tickets in protest, including several under the name “Jesus Christ.”
A Facebook page protesting the August visit of Pope Francis to Ireland is encouraging people to book large numbers of free tickets, which will not be used, to ensure a low turnout at events.
Jonathan Keane (32) is one member of the ‘Say Nope to the Pope’ Facebook event page. Over 1,000 people have clicked “attending” and another 4,000 marked themselves as “interested” on the social media platform.
Mr Keane told The Irish Times he booked 800 tickets on Monday, by using various different names and email addresses, on the World Meeting of Families website.
He booked one batch of tickets for the Phoenix Park mass under the name “Jesus Christ,” he said.
“There’s been lots of people saying they’d got 60 tickets” on the page yesterday he said, and he estimated that “easily thousands” of tickets had been booked by members of the page, who would not be attending any events.

Sounds like a brilliant idea. And it says something about how out of touch the Church is that it didn't anticipate and forestall.
Incidentally, anyone thinking this pope is progressive should read the small print.

I love the idea of a festival called Nope, I’m in