Two Irish trainee priests were sent home from Pontifical Irish College, Rome (Picture: Peter Clarke/Wikicommons)

Two trainee priests have been ordered to return to Ireland from a Catholic college in Rome after they were found in bed together.

The pair are believed to have been drinking earlier at the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which banned artificial means of contraception.

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The pair had been studying at the Irish College in Rome, but it is unknown whether they will be allowed to continue their studies for the priesthood, reports the Irish Times.

A spokesman for the Catholic bishops said: ‘It is not appropriate to comment about individuals.’


Dublin stopped sending its priests to St Patrick’s College, Maynooth

(Picture: Finaghy/Wikicommons)

The Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin announced in he was not sending trainee priests to the traditional St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, due to an ‘atmosphere’ at the national seminary.



Instead he sent trainees from Dublin to the Irish College in Rome as it offered ‘a good grounding’ in the Catholic faith.

He said: ‘There seems to be an atmosphere of strange goings-on in Maynooth and it seems like a quarrelsome place with anonymous letters being sent around.’

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