IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests
Mary Cunningham outlines the CDF’s controlling role in the silencing of Fr Sean Fagan, undermining Archbishop Charles Brown’s recent assertion that such actions are a matter for a religious priest’s superior
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Silencing: The Truth Obscured.
Archbishop Brown stated on RTE’s Drive Time programme (15/03/13), that the while the CDF could become involved in silencing issues, they have no reason to do so because it is a matter for the priest’s immediate superior.
Why then is the procedure carried out as follows?
◦Writings of a priest are denounced, often anonymously, to the CDF.
◦The CDF appoints an anonymous consulter to investigate.
◦The head of the order is commanded to appear before the CDF and renunciation of the accused’s work is demanded.
◦On non-compliance, the superior is ordered to impose sanctions on the accused, ranging from censoring of their work, to threats of the removal of their rights to exercise priestly faculties.
In the particular case of Sean Fagan, a letter signed by the then prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger, was sent to the Archbishop Brady in 2004. In it he demanded, after referring to asking for four years, that ‘Your Grace publish a ‘Notification’ on Fr. Fagan’s book ‘Does Morality Change?’.
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