Association of Catholic Priests co-founder silenced by CDF

Catholic Ireland
April 9, 2012

The Catholic lay group, We are Church Ireland, has expressed outrage at the news that a prominent Irish Redemptorist priest has been silenced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

On Thursday, Fr Tony Flannery, one of the co-founders of the Association of Catholic Priests, which represents over 800 Irish clergy, confirmed to the media that he is being investigated by the Vatican over his liberal views on issues such as clerical celibacy and women priests.

A second Irish Redemptorist, Fr Gerard Moloney, who is editor of the well-known religious monthly, Reality, is also reported to have been silenced over his liberal views and is no longer permitted to write on particular issues in the magazine. Fr Flannery’s column in Reality, which has featured for the last fourteen years, has been discontinued.

In a statement, We are Church Ireland said its members were, “appalled” at the silencing of Fr Flannery from the expression of his theological views. They also called on Irish Catholics to support him at this time.

The group, which was established this year, said it was not the first time Irish theologians have been silenced and they referred in their statement to moves two years ago against Capuchin, Fr Owen O’Sullivan, by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), after he published an article in The Furrow magazine arguing for a more supportive attitude towards homosexuality.

Describing the CDF move against Fr Flannery as an, “infringement of the rights of Catholics to dissent from man-made canon laws of the Church,” We are Church Ireland urged his fellow priests to, “publicly express their solidarity with their silenced brother priest,” in order to circumvent further moves against him.

A spokesperson for the group said it is, “a critical time in the Catholic Church,” as both the apostolic visitation report and Pope Benedict’s Holy Thursday homily were, “trying to bring our Church back into rigid authoritarian centralised structures where all dissent is dealt with in a ruthless manner.”

Read entire article at Catholic Ireland News