When her local priest failed to appear for her mass last Sunday in Mount Merrion, politician Josepha Madigan chose to lead the parishioners in prayer.

This act prompted Martin to launch an attack on Madigan, calling her “deeply disrespectful.” The Archbishop also claimed that she used the absence of the priest in her parish to “push a particular agenda,” to which she has replied via Facebook: “The only agenda I am pushing is the one of equality.”

Madigan, who led Fine Gael’s campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment, feels that it is a “sad reflection of the times we live” that there are so few priests. She proposed that the solution to this problem is to allow women to be ordained. In a piece written by Madigan published on Tuesday the 26th of June, she writes: “If the Church is to be truly reflective of its people, and if it is seeking an obvious solution to the shortage of clergy, then ordaining women is the answer.”

Madigan, who is also Minister for Culture and Heritage, ended the piece with the promise that she intends to take the matter further. “I will conclude by saying that in August that if I do get the opportunity, I fully intend raising these matters with Pope Francis.”

The only agenda I’m pushing is the one of equality - I am a member of the Catholic Church but if it is to be truly reflective of it’s people & address shortage of clergy it should ordain women. My statement on comments by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin: https://t.co/U8PAG33cqj pic.twitter.com/6oZYgzKnwF

— ⚖️Josepha Madigan (@josephamadigan) June 26, 2018