By Jenny Brinkworth
Father Ray Kelly has been a Catholic priest for 25 years and has always loved to sing but when he decided to surprise a wedding couple with his tailored rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah on 5 April last year, his whole world changed.
One of the guests at the wedding decided to upload a video of him singing to YouTube, and cheekily winking to bride Leah and groom Chris. Within a few days, over a million people had seen it and Fr Ray was flooded with inquiries from media, record companies and management teams from all over the world.
This culminated in Fr Ray striking a record deal with Universal Music, the biggest music company in the world, and the production of his first album, Where I Belong, backed by a choir of 200 local residents.
But Fr Ray has made it clear to everyone that he isn’t giving up his job as parish priest in the County Meath town of Oldcastle. His producers even built a recording booth in the lounge of his house to enable him to attend to his parish duties.
Born in Tyrrellspass, County Meath, in April 1953, Fr Ray moved to Dublin and worked in the civil service until 1982 when he joined the seminary, and was ordained in 1989.
Fr Ray said he never thought his wedding song, which has now been viewed by more than 41 million people, would reach the “four corners of the world”.
“I have been singing at many of my liturgies, weddings, funerals and Sunday Masses for many years now and people normally expect it, which is fine with me,” he said.
“On the Tuesday after the wedding, Chris and Leah sent me an email prior to their departure for a honeymoon in Mexico, thanking me for the lovely service and liturgy and especially for the surprise they got with me singing Hallelujah. They told me it was up on Facebook and sent me the link. I hit the link and lo and behold, there I was singing Hallelujah. I was in shock at seeing it.”
Fr Ray said within an hour people started calling him to tell him he was on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
“That continued all evening and into next day before the media from all over the world were phoning for interviews and TV appearances,” he said.
It wasn’t the first time Fr Ray had sung at a wedding and he is sure that he told Chris and Leah at their rehearsal that he was going to sing Hallelujah but he assumes they didn’t hear or understand.
He said before becoming a priest he had dreamt of a singing career but this was overtaken by his priesthood until people started asking him to sing at parties. “I loved to oblige,” he said, adding that he gradually brought his singing into his clerical duties through Sunday Masses, weddings and funerals.
Now that the whole world knows about his singing, it’s a matter of finding a balance between his priesthood and his singing career.
“The people of my parish of Oldcastle are so proud of their parish priest being propelled into the limelight; as they say, it is putting Oldcastle on the map,” he said.
Asked if it has caused him any problems, Fr Ray said he had been very fortunate to have a very supportive bishop who was “100 per cent behind me, as are all the priests in the Diocese of Meath”.
“I have been fortunate to be able to get a priest to cover my work while I am away as well so there are no problems in that way,” he said.
Not surprisingly, he has had “lots and lots and lots” of requests to marry couples, which isn’t a problem if they are in his church in Oldcastle. “If I get requests to travel, I usually have to decline those invitations,” he said.
His video has brought joy and smiles to millions of people, and many have likened it to the way Pope Francis is reaching out to his flock.
“I can only say that for me to bring such joy to people at their wedding day can only be a positive thing for our Church because people will see us priests as just ordinary guys doing the best we can by making others feel special and loved,” he said.
“We are all on this journey together to encourage each other and affirm each other that we are all beautiful, talented, gifted people with the possibility of doing great things for each other.
“And there is no better way to give glory to God than by doing that.”
View the original YouTube video at http://shorefi.re/1AXjZQy