IRELAND
Irish Independent
SARAH MACDONALD – 01 JANUARY 2014
Radical Irish priest Fr Tony Flannery has described the Irish church as “bereft of leadership” in a stinging rebuke to the Irish bishops.
The Redemptorist, who was silenced by the Vatican in February 2012 and is currently forbidden to say Mass or minister as a priest because of his liberal views, said he believed the Vatican’s “witch hunts” against liberal priests were over, thanks to the election of Pope Francis.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, the 66-year-old said of the spate of censures which targeted Irish clerics: “If Pope Francis had been elected a year earlier, I would not be in the position I am in, and neither would the other five priests in Ireland — because clearly Francis doesn’t approve of this.”
The Co Galway-based cleric, who had an unblemished 40-year record as a missioner until he was censured by the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the Pope had made it clear that he “doesn’t want to be hearing this sort of thing in the Vatican and that he wanted this to be dealt with at the local level by the bishops.”
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