{"id":3876,"date":"2010-01-06T20:09:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T20:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html"},"modified":"2010-01-06T20:09:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T20:09:13","slug":"praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html","title":{"rendered":"Praying to St. Mel for a miracle (and money)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Could an Irish cathedral destroyed by a fire get an unexpected — and very famous — savior?<\/p>\n

The local bishop hopes so:<\/a><\/p>\n

\nA desperate plea for actor Mel Gibson to help restore a landmark burned-out Irish cathedral has been made by the local Bishop in Longford, Ireland.<\/p>\n

\"swiffer+StMelsCathedralLongford.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>St. Mel’s Cathedral was burned to the ground in a mysterious fire on Christmas morning, and it will cost at least $12 million to rebuild. Local bishop Colm O’Reilly has turned to Gibson for help.<\/p>\n

Mel Gibson’s mother, Anne Reilly, hails from near the town of Longford, and the actor is named after Saint Mel, who came to Ireland with St. Patrick in the Fifth Century.<\/p>\n

“It would be nice for him to get involved, it certainly would be appreciated,” the Bishop said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve never had any contact with him up until now. His name of course, comes from here.<\/p>\n

“Longford people would be positive about such a move. We’re all like a big bereaved family at this stage,” he added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could an Irish cathedral destroyed by a fire get an unexpected — and very famous — savior? The local bishop hopes so: A desperate plea for actor Mel Gibson to help restore a landmark burned-out Irish cathedral has been made by the local Bishop in Longford, Ireland. St. Mel’s Cathedral was burned to the ground…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-churches","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nPraying to St. Mel for a miracle (and money) - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Praying to St. Mel for a miracle (and money) - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Could an Irish cathedral destroyed by a fire get an unexpected — and very famous — savior? The local bishop hopes so: A desperate plea for actor Mel Gibson to help restore a landmark burned-out Irish cathedral has been made by the local Bishop in Longford, Ireland. St. Mel’s Cathedral was burned to the ground…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-06T20:09:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/swiffer+StMelsCathedralLongford-thumb-200x156-10611.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Praying to St. Mel for a miracle (and money) - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Praying to St. Mel for a miracle (and money) - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Could an Irish cathedral destroyed by a fire get an unexpected — and very famous — savior? The local bishop hopes so: A desperate plea for actor Mel Gibson to help restore a landmark burned-out Irish cathedral has been made by the local Bishop in Longford, Ireland. St. Mel’s Cathedral was burned to the ground…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2010-01-06T20:09:13+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/swiffer+StMelsCathedralLongford-thumb-200x156-10611.jpg"}],"author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html","name":"Praying to St. Mel for a miracle (and money) - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/swiffer+StMelsCathedralLongford-thumb-200x156-10611.jpg","datePublished":"2010-01-06T20:09:13+00:00","dateModified":"2010-01-06T20:09:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/swiffer+StMelsCathedralLongford-thumb-200x156-10611.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/swiffer+StMelsCathedralLongford-thumb-200x156-10611.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/01\/praying-to-st-mel-for-a-miracle-and-money.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Praying to St. Mel for a miracle (and money)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150","name":"jmcgee","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","caption":"jmcgee"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/jmcgee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}