A priest based in a Mayo church gave a sermon about the marriage referendum, during which he chastised those who voted Yes.

A Catholic Priest in Ballina, Co Mayo, dedicated two weekend services to admonishing the members of his congregation who had voted Yes in the marriage referendum on May 22.

Fr Tom Doherty, the curate of the Co Mayo parish, asked Yes voters at St Patrick’s Church to stand up during his Gospel homilies on May 23 and 24.

Parishioner Louise Henegan said “he accused those who voted Yes as putting two fingers up to the church, and told us to ‘recite the creed if you think it has anything to offer you’”.

“Nobody saw it coming. It was the condemnatory tone he used,” parishioner Louise Heneghan said.

Now here’s the piece I spoke about.#Marref pic.twitter.com/O5qOskoNOF

— Louise Heneghan (@LaobhaoiseNihE) June 2, 2015

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, parishioner Louise Heneghan (who was present at both masses) said that “people are still not happy about this, there’s a lot of anger with the locals still”.

Many parishioners walked out of the church in a form of protest, taking issue with the priest’s abusive tone.However, in an interview with the Western People, the priest defended his homilies as “not meant to condemn”.

“It was meant rather to invite us all to reflect on how we as a church will find our feet in a rapidly changing society,” he said.

Regarding his suggestion that parishioners recite the creed if they felt it had anything to offer them, Fr Doherty said “it was simply an invitation to people to pray the creed in a meaningful way at a time when our church was awakening to the challenges which lie ahead of her”.

In the words of Judy Garland: