Warren FitzGerald
Confessions Of A Pole Dancing Priest
Laura has a calling from God. But, like many other twentysomethings, she also loves booze, sex and funny cat videos. Will this make her a bad priest? The crusty white male custodians of the ministry think so. But Laura has different ideas.
At theological college, despite hard partying and frequent hangovers, Laura is a good enough student to point out where the scripture is a misogynistic 'crock of shite'.
Threatened with expulsion, Laura is silenced. For now. But she finds empowerment in pole fitness classes, and as a fully-fledged priest, older and wiser, she installs a pole in the vicarage, leaving visiting bishops agog.
Laura, an outsider herself, knows that outsiders are who the church is there for - from the old man barred from his lover's funeral to the young woman in need of a secret abortion. But even Laura's powers of inclusivity are challenged when she has to eulogise at a paedophile's funeral and is hit on by a randy undertaker.
Confessions of a Pole Dancing Priest, one woman's true-life odyssey of outrage through the patriarchal world of the Church, is full of whip-smart comebacks, stinging one-liners and scalpel-sharp observations. Laura's story moves from episodes which are frank, crude, funny and rebellious to a traumatic conclusion of almost biblical proportions that speaks to the wisdom and humanity in all of us.