The Irish Catholic newspaper believes its coverage of Irish government tensions with the Vatican provoked a cyber attack on its website.

It is now considering contacting police over a hacking incident on Sunday, which replaced text on the homepage and referred to a "false religion".

The replacement message read: "You. Got. Taken. Site off-line.

"The Irish Catholic - Ireland's biggest and best-selling Catholic newspaper since 1888 - is currently hacked.

"We should be back shortly. Thank you for your patience. And we wish you to continue believing in your false religion ... Gotta love false hope."

The hacker then told the site programmers to "watch their data" and to "get your act together".

Irish Catholic editor Garry O'Sullivan said he believes the latest incident may have been provoked by its recent coverage of the Vatican and its heated exchange with Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

"We have been running a lot of inside stories on the Church lately. I think (that it was motivated by recent coverage), I really do.

"We are getting all of these great stories and I got an email this morning from a German newspaper asking me about (the hacking) which was really surprising.

"It's probably a young person with a negative attitude towards religion and pretty good at hacking. I would rather if they wrote a letter to the editor and outlined their views in a more reasoned way," he said.