Squirt Gun Priest

Submission 3,708

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About

Squirt Gun Priest refers to a series of memes featuring Father Tim Pelc blessing people from a distance with a toy water pistol to abide social distancing guidelines to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Origin

On April 12th, the St. Amrose Parish in Grosse Point Park, Michigan posted a photograph of Father Pelc using the squirt gun on Facebook. ^[1] They wrote, "Blessing of the Easter Foods, April 11, 2020 Adapting to the need for social distancing, St. Ambrose continued it's tradition of Blessing of Easter Food Baskets, drive-thru style. Yes, that's Fr. Tim using a squirt gun full of Holy Water!." The post received more than 690 shares, 600 reactions and 120 comments in less than two months (shown below).

Spread

On May 15th, 2020, Twitter ^[2] user @tripgore posted another image with the caption "A Priest giving social distance blessings with a squirt pistol and what, I'm assuming, is Holy water. 2020 folks." The post received more than 570,000 likes and 128,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, left).

That day, Redditor ^[3] Ezo_NL shared the image on the /r/photoshopbattles. Many responded with image edits of the priest. The post received more than 22,000 points (97% upvoted) and 320 comments in less than one week (examples below, center and right).

Several media outlets covered the story, including CBS,^[4] MetroTimes,^[5] The Guardian,^[6] USA Today^[7] and more. In an article about the priest, BuzzFeed ^[8] speak to Father Pelc about his internet fame. They wrote:

"The original idea was to do something for the kids of the parish," Pelc told BuzzFeed News. "They were about ready to have an Easter unlike any of their past, so I thought, What can we still do that would observe all the protocols of social distancing?"

Pelc came up with the idea of using a water gun to bless his parishioners' Easter baskets from a safe distance and consulted with his friend, an emergency room doctor in Detroit, to ensure it was safe to do so.

"He said, 'Not only is this safe, this is fun,' and he came with his kids," Pelc said. "He provided me with all the personal protection stuff that I needed. The sun was out. We had a nice turnout. It was a way of continuing an ancient custom, and people seemed to enjoy it."