Bath Beach Priest Lashes Out At City Fines Through Twitter, Then Apologizes

Father Michael Gelfant, a pastor at the Saint Finbar Roman Catholic Church in Bath Beach, unleashed a tirade of complaints through his Twitter account against FDNY fines levied against his church, according to a report by the New York Post.

Gelfant, 36, let loose his grievances through the Twitter handle @StFinbarBkln over fines that have cost his church close to $40,000.

“Fire inspectors give the FDNY a bad name. Another Bloomberg scam!”

The church was ticketed for electric lighting hazards, unserviced fire extinguishers and a failure to produce blueprints for the 75-year-old building. Gelfant’s comments have since been removed and he has now released an apology over Facebook, which also blasted the Post for sensationalizing his Twitter remarks:

For the record, the frustration I shared with the public was not directed at the FDNY, to whom we have a very good relationship with, in particular with our local Fire Company. I also specifically told the NY Post’s Susan Edelman that as a parish, we did not want to participate in her story against the Mayor. She refused our request and in releasing her story (creative writing) on Divine Mercy Sunday, attempted to humiliate me personally by using a photo of me from my personal Twitter account. At least Louie made the paper…

The facts are the regular safety violations issued by Fire Prevention have all been cured making Edelman’s article pointless. She confuses the violations on one building and attributes them to our church building which has no violations. In 2010, St. Finbar Church did not pay $12,000 for violations, actually the contractor hired to do the work paid fines.

The point being that Susan Edelman and Cynthia Fagen have conducted themselves in the most reprehensible way. Edelman hung-up the phone on me and Fagen was asked and escorted out of St. Finbar Church for talking on her Cell Phone 3 minutes before the Mass begun disrupting people from praying. Their article is propaganda and perhaps these two newspaper story creators, should refer to the parish Twitter account for spiritual guidance rather then using St. Finbar as a tool to jab the mayor and our public servants. Placing the story on page 2, when there is more important news with regards to our city, makes the judgment of the NY Post editors questionable and reduces the NY Post to a mere tabloid paper. –Fr. Michael Gelfant