'Catholic Spring' uprising prediction for Ireland over dissenting priest Father Flannery

Opposition to Vatican move to silence him continues to grow as disconnect widens

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Pope Benedict XVI

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The Daily Beast reports that, “The Vatican has been watching Father Tony Flannery for a long time”.

They also identified the following paragraph as the one  that most landed Flannery in trouble after he wrote it.

“Opening up the ministry of the church to laypeople, to married people, to priests, to women. In other words, not confining it to the male celibate priesthood as we’ve had in the past, because clearly that is not working now, so we have to begin to think in different ways, but the Vatican is increasingly forbidding any discussion on that,” he wrote. "Many of us priests are very frustrated with the way the Vatican conducts its business.”

Daliy Beast reports that “A growing number of Catholic bloggers say the movement has the makings of what could be considered the beginning of a Catholic Spring uprising,” pointing out the statement by the Association of Catholic Priests.

That statement read, “We affirm in the strongest possible terms our confidence in and solidarity with Father Flannery and we wish to make clear our profound view that this intervention is unfair, unwarranted and unwise,”

“We wish to register our extreme unease and disquiet at the present development, not least the secrecy surrounding such interventions and the questions about due process and freedom of conscience that such interventions surface.”

Brendan Butler of  the lay Irish church lobby group, “We are Church Ireland”, told the Daily Beast that the move “amounted to a return to the Inquisition” and that the current Holy See governing body is worrying. “They are trying to bring our church back into rigid authoritarian centralized structures where all dissent is dealt with in a ruthless manner.”

Another prominent priest, Father Gabriel Daly, wrote in a priest’s publication called “Doctrine Life” that the church was attempting to silence all dissent and he seemed to be risking suspension himself.

“Aided by secrecy and the unchallenged exercise of power, the Curia has established effective control over the whole church,” he wrote in this week’s edition. “There is little or no concern for those faithful Catholics who are quietly appalled by what is happening. They are seen as simply wrong.”

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