A great mystery has been revealed. In the minds of most people, the words ‘parochial house’ (as in Craggy Island), ‘presbytery’, ‘priest’s house’ or ‘clergy house’ conjure up a totally other world. People wonder what goes on inside. Religion at its best is about mystery. My late grandmother would always say, ‘You can be so heavenly-minded as to be no earthly use.’ We are all asked ‘What do you do?’ and the reaction to a priest’s response can be very amusing, a cross between being a mortician and a psychiatrist – I do apologise to both professions but even they know what I mean.

Father Ted, the parish priest (Dermot Morgan), brought us into a new dimension to say the least, and Channel 4 is to be congratulated for opening up one very important aspect of the mystery of faith: humour and fun. However, for me as a priest, Father Ted is perfectly normal. For the most part, priests are like that. It is almost too close to home; it is reality television, complete with redoubtable housekeeper from hell, Mrs Doyle (Pauline McLynn), who keeps the whole household afloat under her watchful eye on tea, biscuits and gossip.

People love nothing more than seeing the most holy and dignified being portrayed as very human. Pope John Paul II often used humour and joking, particularly when among the young, to express a warm and inviting persona, which of course was absolutely true and sincere. One amusing photograph, now a postcard, shows the late Pope holding his hands to his eyes to pretend that he is looking at the crowd through binoculars. And of course there is the famous series of photographs of him wearing Bono’s sunglasses. When the crowds during his 1982 visit to England chanted out ‘JPII, we love you’, he responded: ‘JPII loves you too’. When a priest cries, it conveys more than any words, for example attending the dying, whether babies or the very elderly. And when a priest is seen laughing, this conveys absolute joy and utter normality.