Priest installed by police raid

[emad]

From BBC News:

Police in balaclavas have burst into a church in an Italian mountain village to let a new priest opposed by parishioners take up his job.
The early morning operation ended a six-month stand-off during which locals had protested about the replacement of their favourite monk.
Many elderly people, with coats pulled on over their nightclothes, came out to demonstrate when the police arrived. "I tried to raise the alarm, but they cut off the power," one said. The saga began in August, when church authorities tried to send a new priest to the village of Trasacco, near L'Aquila in the Abruzzi mountains.

Locals bricked up the door, keeping their 67-year-old white-bearded Capuchin friar, Father Emilio Succhiella, a "prisoner of love" for 10 days. The villagers are devoted to the Capuchins, who have served them for the last 430 years. They began a sit-in to prevent the new priest taking over, which lasted until the police intervened on Monday.

Francesco Recchia, 72, a farm worker who took part in the sit-in, said the carabinieri had been dressed in "anti-terrorist gear". "They burst in through the back door," he said. Mr Recchia managed to ring the church bell, bringing hundreds of local people onto the streets, singing hymns. The deputy mayor, Vincenzo Retico, said the new priest would struggle to be accepted by the community. "How can the people welcome him now, arriving flanked by police?" he said. "Everything that there is in this town today was built with the toil and sweat of the monks. They were part of our being."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3519744.stm

[Southpaw Bookworm]

1. Sounds like a bad joke

How many cops does it take to change a priest?

:evilgrin:

[emad]

2. Maybe it was a practice run for installing the next Pope....

..send in the Carabineri....