This Sunday’s 11:00 am mass at the Church of São Sebastião, in Câmara de Lobos, was marked by an episode reported to the newspaper by the congregation as “sad” and “disgusting”.
The situation, much commented on in the churchyard after the end of the mass, was carried out by Father Marcos Pinto.
A child, about 13 years old, climbed up to the ambo (place destined for the Readings) to read the First Reading, and at the end of it left the place without concluding with the usual expression “Word of the Lord”, adds a source who attended the mass.
Furthermore, when the young man was going to the bench where he was seated, in the company of the catechist, he did not bow properly to the parish priest, who was seated at the altar. “Immediately, Father Marcos gets up, removes the mask from his face, and in an authoritative tone” calls the boy and tells him to return to the ambo to finish the Reading, that is, say the expression “Word of the Lord”.
Then, he adds, “he mentions that he has to bow” before the priest. “Pretend I’m the president and when you finish reading you kneel”, the priest will have said before the whole church. This while doing the procedure asking the young man to imitate him, revealed some church goersl to JM.
“Then he told the boy to sit down and go back to the ambo to reproduce the correct procedure again, alone, and he made him read again, which the child refused to do.”
Faced with this attitude, a unease arose in the Church, with the congregation in disbelief at what had happened. During the homily, Father Marcos spoke about the subject again, as the discomfort felt among young people, children and adults was visible. He later asked the child, “who was visibly shaken and embarrassed, if he wanted to belong to the readership group.”
At the end of the mass, in the churchyard, the parish priest’s attitude was a topic of conversation, with parents saying that “my son will never read with this priest celebrating mass”, because with these “attitudes he is only pushing away the people of the Church”.