IRELAND
Irish Independent
SARAH MACDONALD – 09 SEPTEMBER 2013
A priest threatened with excommunication has called on the Catholic Church to openly debate whether clerical celibacy has contributed to the number of clerics who abused children.
Fr Tony Flannery – a co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, which has more than 1,000 members – said the lonely single lives that priests lead result in an “inevitable” struggle over sexuality.
Fr Flannery has been suspended from ministry and threatened with excommunication by the Vatican over his stand on mandatory clerical celibacy, contraception and women priests. He is one of the first priests to publicly question a possible linkage of celibacy and clerical abuse.
He made his comments in an interview with the Irish Independent ahead of the launch on Thursday of his new book, ‘A Question of Conscience’.
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