Parish priest of San Rafael RC, Fr Roger Pa­ponette was tied up and robbed of a ve­hi­cle and per­son­al valu­ables at the pres­bytery this morn­ing, the Catholic Arch­dio­cese has said.

Items from the pres­bytery were ran­sacked and al­so stolen.

A re­port by the Catholic News said his Parish Sec­re­tary Melis­sa Hob­son-Gar­cia stat­ed that the in­ci­dent left Fr Pa­ponette a bit “shak­en up” emo­tion­al­ly, but phys­i­cal­ly okay and un­harmed.

Hob­son-Gar­cia re­layed that af­ter 1 am Fr Pa­ponette was awak­ened to loud bang­ing on his bed­room door fol­lowed by flash­ing lights in his face.

Fr Pa­ponette then un­tied him­self and con­tact­ed the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion. Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.

The ve­hi­cle has since been re­cov­ered.