IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Brendan Hoban’s review of Tony Flannery’s book, A Question of Conscience, which will be launched at the Royal Irish Academy next Thursday, 12th, at 6.30pm by Bill O’Herlihy

A Question of Conscience: Brendan Hoban

An important question: what have we learned in the Catholic Church over the last few decades about the way we do our business? One, that dealing with problems behind closed doors can cause more problems than it solves. A cult of secrecy has served the Church very badly. Two, respect is fundamental to the Christian enterprise. Without is we lose our bearings ­ without it the institution becomes more important than the person, sometimes more important than the message.

In church matters, it is unarguable that those two defining principles ­­transparency and respect ­ are fundamental to Christian discourse.Unfortunately, as we know, as a Church we have often failed to…