This Priest Squirted Holy Water At Churchgoers At A Socially-Distanced Service And He's Now A Meme

Father Tim Pelc told BuzzFeed News he's amazed at how widely the photo is being shared. "It even had two hits in the Vatican," he said, "which sort of concerned me but I haven’t heard anything yet."

Father Tim Pelc tries to stay off social media when possible, but recently, it's become unavoidable. Thanks to the photos from his socially-distanced Holy Week service in Michigan, which involved a water gun full of Holy Water, Pelc has become a meme.

The photos, which were taken by parishioner Larry Peplin, received some attention when they were first posted by St. Ambrose Parish on Facebook in April. But they have recently gone viral on Twitter, and even sparked a Reddit Photoshop Battle.

The sudden internet popularity has come as a pleasant surprise to Pelc, 70, who's been with the parish in Detroit for 30 years and prides himself on having a "pretty wacky mind and pretty accepting congregation."

"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.

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