Britain's Got Talent's Fr Ray Kelly and Fr Brian D'Arcy defend music spectacular at MacGowan funeral after cleric brands it 'a scandal'

EXCLUSIVE: The clerics were commenting after a Belfast priest had branded the service 'a scandal' and 'an abuse' of the Mass

Two of Ireland’s best-known priests have defended the star-studded, three-hour musical service at Shane MacGowan’s funeral last week after it was branded a “scandal” by another cleric.

The funeral Mass was attended by celebrities including Johnny Depp, Nick Cave and Bob Geldof, and featured an array of musical performances that had guests dancing in the aisles of the church.

It was described as a “scandal” by Fr Paddy McCafferty, who told Belfast Live that the spectacle was “an abuse of what Mass is and what the Catholic funeral liturgy is all about”.

“It was an abuse of the liturgy and it showed a completely askew understanding of what we actually are doing when we celebrate a funeral Mass,” he said.

However, the funeral was staunchly defended by Fermanagh priest, writer and broadcaster, Fr Brian D’Arcy, who said Fr McCafferty’s criticism was “fairly par for the course” from the Belfast cleric.

“I thought the funeral was brilliant,” he told the Irish Mirror.

READ MORE:Priest slams Shane MacGowan's funeral as 'a scandal' and 'completely inappropriate'

“The first Mass was the Last Supper, the first Mass was a crucifixion on Calvary. None of them were very liturgically proper.

“The people of Ireland kept the faith by having Masses on mountainsides when it was banned, and Mass rocks here and there.

“People keep their faith in the presence of Jesus and the Eucharist in different ways,” said Fr D’Arcy.

“You have your liturgy which expresses the individual life of each person, and it’s not locked into a frame that there’s only one way of doing it. I think that’s a great misunderstanding of Mass, the Eucharist, and of God’s mercy.”

The funeral service in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, which featured a rendition of A Rainy Night in Soho by Nick Cave, was also defended by social media sensation, ‘Singing Priest’ Fr Ray Kelly.

He missed the coverage of Shane MacGowan’s funeral because he was performing at a concert in Florida, but told the Irish Mirror that there were ways of incorporating secular songs into a service.

Fr Kelly - who performed live on Britain's Got Talent and Dancing With The Stars - said he had “got a bit of flack” for singing Hallelujah during a wedding service in a video that went viral and launched his singing career, because it was a Leonard Cohen song.

“To me, it was appropriate for a wedding because it incorporated the liturgy of the wedding,” he said. “It has over 90 million hits on YouTube, a lot of people have watched it.

He said secular songs “aren’t really meant to be within the context of the Mass”, but added that “there’s plenty of scope outside the liturgy but still in the church” for musical performances.

“Churches are used for concerts as well, for secular concerts – there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve done loads of concerns in churches,” said Fr Kelly.

Fr McCafferty had singled out Glen Hansard’s performance of Fairytale of New York as “totally out of place”.

Fr D’Arcy said he would understand people taking issue with the lyrics of that song “a little bit”, but added that he had his own interpretation of the Christmas hit.

“My own point of view is that it’s a sad song about two people who cannot celebrate lives in the way they used to, and they tell us about their life in their language. As a human being, it’s time we listened to that, and the church is as good a place as any to listen to it,” he said.

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