IRELAND
Galway Independent
A Galway priest has said the Vatican’s demand for silence is “too high a price” for a return to his priestly duties.
Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery from Attymon in Athenry spoke out on Sunday amid threats from the Vatican that he could be excommunicated from the Catholic Church if he continued to air his controversial views.
The local priest said he had received a letter from Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith instructing him to refrain from publishing any further articles outlining his views and to have no further involvement with the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).
Fr Flannery, who has been prevented from ministering as a priest for the last year, was also instructed to write, sign and publish a article accepting that the Catholic Church can never ordain women to the priesthood, accepting all Church stances on contraception and homosexuality, and the refusal of the sacraments to people in second relationships.
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