IRELAND
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)
Mark Dooley
Two years ago, I appeared on a television programme entitled Faith in Crisis. I was joined on the panel by Fr Tony Flannery, a founding member of the self-styled Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland (ACP). Last week, the Vatican banned Fr Flannery from contributing to the Redemptorist Order’s Reality magazine.
Before appearing on Faith in Crisis, I had not met Fr Flannery. In fact, it wasn’t until he accused me of suggesting that he didn’t celebrate the Eucharist correctly, that I realised he was a Catholic priest. This was because he neither spoke nor dressed as someone who wished to be identified as a member of the clergy.
Like most of the other participants on that programme, Fr Flannery chanted from a radical hymn book. His message was one of dissent from Rome on issues ranging from clerical celibacy to women priests. As he spoke, I remember being surprised that the Vatican permitted such flagrant opposition to Church doctrine by one of its priests.
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