RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal
BY RICHARD SALIT
Journal Staff Writer
rsalit@providencejournal.com
WEST WARWICK, R.I. — An Irish priest censured by the Vatican for supporting the ordination of women and challenging church teachings on homosexuality received a warm welcome when speaking at Emanuel Lutheran Church on Sunday afternoon.
About 75 people turned out to hear Father Tony Flannery, who is on an 18-city, three-week tour of the United States after being suspended from priestly ministry in 2012.
Thin, short and graying, the 67-year-old priest, while mild-mannered and prone to making occasional jokes, recounted the life-changing episode that began when the Vatican came after him. While he had expressed views critical of the church in articles for Reality magazine, he said he figured that since he was just a Redemptorist preacher from Galway, Ireland, “the Vatican couldn’t care less about me.”
“I never considered myself a radical,” he said.
But when he refused to sign and publish a statement agreeing that women will never be ordained and embracing church orthodoxy on such matters as contraception and homosexuality, Flannery found himself on the outside of the Catholic Church looking in.
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