Two Priests Went After Meghan Sussex’s Advent Calendar. The Daily Mail Blamed Her Supporters for Pushing Back

The Daily Mail has predictably used two British priests’ criticism of Meghan Sussex’s new Advent calendar to construct yet another manufactured Sussex scandal.

As we reported, the row began when Reverend Daniel French promoted a £5.95 Christian Advent calendar from the Meaningful Chocolate Company while using Meghan’s $148 As Ever x Compartés calendar as the expensive alternative. Father Chris Phillips then joined the discussion publicly.

French did not need Meghan to promote the Christian calendar, yet he deliberately used her product as the comparison. The irony is obvious. Meghan’s $148 calendar is not even unusually expensive for the luxury market. Dior sells Advent calendars for hundreds, even thousands, yet the sermon landed on the mixed-race woman with the comparatively affordable product.

Fr Chris Phillips later locked his account and reportedly began blocking people who criticised his behaviour. Never one to miss a chance to demonise Meghan’s supporters, the Daily Mail jumped in with a headline claiming her fans had “terrorised” the priests. That framing links anonymous social-media users directly to Meghan and makes the priests sound as though they were randomly targeted for expressing their faith. It leaves out the rather important fact that the priests publicly chose Meghan as the target of their criticism first.

So, they received criticism in return. One Meghan supporter asked why a priest was “trolling a woman for selling an advent calendar.” Another called them “sorry excuses for Christianity.” A third wrote, “God sees you.” That may be harsh criticism, but it is still criticism. The Mail then bundled those responses together under the far more dramatic claim that Meghan’s fans had “terrorised” clergymen.

They chose to publicly criticise Meghan for selling a chocolate calendar. You cannot throw stones from a glass house and then call every stone thrown back “terrorism.”

The Advent Calendar Was Just an Excuse to Reopen the Meghan File

Perhaps the clearest sign that this was never simply a story about two priests is how quickly the Mail wandered elsewhere in their reporting. Suddenly readers were revisiting Meghan’s baptism, Archbishop Justin Welby and her 2021 Oprah interview. Then came With Love, Meghan. Harry and Meghan’s security followed. So did Archie and Lilibet’s school, their return to Britain and the Lord Chamberlain. Eventually, we circled back to Meghan’s jewellery again.

By the time a five-year-old argument about wedding vows enters a story about chocolate, the original dispute has become little more than an excuse to reopen criticism against Meghan.

The strangest part is that the Daily Mail article accidentally proves what the royal press keeps trying to deny: Meghan has real supporters. People follow her, buy what she wears and show up for what she sells. As Ever launches have repeatedly moved product fast. And Meghan’s recent Instagram nod to her “squad of support” was a sweet acknowledgment of the people who have stuck by her.

Also, it bears repeating again, Meghan is not even selling this Advent calendar in the UK. If these British priests were genuinely worried about Christmas being commercialised, the Royal Collection Trust was right there selling a £25 empty Buckingham Palace Advent calendar to British customers. Yet somehow neither man found the courage to sermonise about that.

And when it comes to Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein and the allegations Virginia Giuffre made against him, the moral thunder goes strangely quiet.

So no, this does not look like brave Christian principle. It looks like two men choosing the safest possible target for their public moralising: a mixed-race woman selling chocolate thousands of miles away, while remaining painfully quiet about scandals much closer to home. That is cowardice dressed up as concern, and they should be ashamed of themselves.