The producers of the Fair City TV soap have rejected criticism from the pulpit about a storyline involving clerical sex abuse.
The storyline revolves around an ex-priest, played by T.P. McKenna, who breaks the seal of Confession in the hope of bringing an abuser to justice.
Father Kevin McNamara, a priest in Killarney, told parishioners at the weekend that he had been "stung" and hurt when he read that the storyline involved a priest breaking the seal of Confession.
He told Mass-goers at St Mary's Cathedral on Saturday evening that "the seal of Confession is never broken". He said it was hard enough to get people to come to Confession without suggesting that priests would tell someone.
Father McNamara repeated his comments yesterday at 10.30 a.m. Mass when he said the 'soap' plot line was "the lowest of the low". He knew of no priest who had ever broken the seal of Confession.
A spokeswoman for the RTÉ programme defended the storyline yesterday and said it was carefully researched with One in Four, the charity for survivors of sexual abuse.
She said the writers wanted to show the motivation behind the priest's decision to break the seal of confession. The character, Father Tom Mitchell, felt it was more important to help an abuse victim get justice, than to keep the seal of Confession.
"He didn't do it easily. He weighed it up very carefully and decided that supporting a victim of abuse was better than keeping the vow," the spokeswoman said.
"I can't see how that would deter people from going to Confession. The Confession part of the story was just a sideline compared with the abuse issue."
She said the Fair City writers had handled the issue very sensitively and had put a lot of effort into researching the issue with the help of One in Four.
Father McNamara urged people, even if they had forgotten the order of the confessional prayers, to come to a special penitential service, which was being held at the cathedral before Christmas, during the season of Advent.