Welsh priest admits sending neo-Nazi messages as part of ‘sexual fetish’  

A Catholic priest from Cardiff has been sentenced to a year-long community order after admitting to sending racist and violent messages in an online neo-Nazi chatroom.

Father Mark Rowles, 57, of St John Lloyd Catholic Church, appeared before magistrates after investigators from counter-terrorism police traced his posts on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

Operating under the name “skinheadlad1488” in a chatroom called “Aryan Reich Killers”,  he was found to have written messages urging that mosques be bombed and using obscene racial slurs against black people and Muslims.

The court heard that he described himself online as a 16-year-old “skinhead neo-Nazi and loner”, and used an image of a masked white man beside a German flag and the phrase “right hand path always”.

One of his posts read, “They should all be strung up or shot”, while in another he remarked that “a few bullets to their brains would help” when speaking about ethnic minorities in London.

Rowles pleaded guilty to three counts of sending offensive or menacing communications in May and June 2024. He was ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work, pay £199 in court costs, and comply with a three-year Criminal Behaviour Order.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Wales said that Rowles has not been in active ministry since the allegations came to light, and that an internal review is under way.

During police interviews, Rowles denied harbouring racist views and claimed his participation in extremist chatrooms stemmed from loneliness and a “sexual fetish for role play”. His defence barrister, Jacqui Seal, said he had never faced disciplinary action in his clerical career and had no previous convictions.

The Church has long condemned racism as a grave sin, reaffirming through papal encyclicals and the Second Vatican Council that such prejudice is incompatible with the Gospel.

Father Rowles’s prosecution comes at a time when the authorities are increasingly focused on the growth of far-Right ideology among small but vocal online groups.

Some commentators have noted the case has raised urgent questions about the pastoral isolation some priests experience and how the digital world can distort the human need for belonging.

Photo: A police officer detains a person during a far-Right march near Ostkreuz railway station in Berlin, Germany, 12 March 2025 (Photo by Omer Messinger/Getty Images)

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