30 Comments

• eiriamach | Oct 12, 2012, 07:10 PM EDT

  My equal humanity and full participation in my religion you consider only "latest whims and fads of popular opinion," "the spirit of the age," gearoid4? And you're not judging? Really? And if the Holy Spirit does not play the numbers game," then what is the relevance of your comment that "The Protestant groups which implemented the same reform agenda as advocated by Fr Flanney, experienced no discernible improvement in their fortunes"? The happiness and spiritual lives of those they receive with hospitality, as well as of those who have been with the inclusive Churches for their lifetimes, have certainly improved. A glimpse of the Kingdom of Heaven, a whisper of the eternal-- they happen Sundays and most other times at such churches, amidst congregations with a sense of mission in this world that you cavalierly dismiss as "secular" and not worth your time-- such churches are transforming it, one open mind at a time.

• Gearoid4 | Oct 12, 2012, 05:32 PM EDT

  No Eiriamach, the Holy Spirit does not play the numbers game, but one must discern the signs of the Holy Spirit, rather than fall for the spirit of the age. The protestant groups which implemented the same reform agenda as advocated by Fr Flanney, experienced no discernible improvement in their fortunes, but rather the reverse in fact. I am not judging any individual and do not presume to be a judge on anyone. I will leave that to the Good Lord. But I can recognize the Christian teachings that will allow mankind to flourish and will survive the latest whims and fads of popular opinion.

• Gearoid4 | Oct 12, 2012, 05:30 PM EDT

  No Eiriamach, the Holy Spirit does not play the numbers game, but one must discern the signs of the Holy Spirit, than fall for the spirit of the age. The protestant groups which implemented the same reform agenda as advocated by Fr Flanney, there was no discernible improvement in their fortunes, and rather the reverse in fact. I am not judging any individual and do not presume to be a judge on anyone. I will leave that to the Good Lord. But I can recognize the Christian teachings that will allow mankind to flourish and will survive the latest whims and fads of popular opinion.

• Los Leandros | Oct 12, 2012, 11:29 AM EDT

  Mr. Hamiltom seems to be historically ignorant. The Church run Inquisitions ( as oppossed to the State counterparts ) were paragons of fairness. Compare & contrast with the capricious witch hunts and tortures of the Protestant Church's. The latter invented such inquisitorial niceties as the rack & the thumbscrew. Thabkfully the central control of the Vatican has avoided the splintering process ( how many different Protestant denominations are there ?, thousands ) of the Reformation Church's. Did'nt Fr. Flannery make a free vow of obedience at his ordination ?.

• Will Hamilton | Oct 12, 2012, 08:21 AM EDT

  Mr Flannery ought to figure out which army he joined. The Catholic Church Limited is not based on anything but central Vatican control. There are probably more than a few of the Popes mandarins in the CDF/Inquisition whipping themselves nightly because they can't burn the likes of Flannery at the stake like they would have in the "good old days".

• eiriamach | Oct 11, 2012, 06:42 PM EDT

  I doubt that the Holy Spirit plays a numbers game, Gearoid4, counting membership gains and losses. The intelligent thing to do, if you cannot bring yourself to see the Gospel at work in ECUSA's recognizing the equal moral worth of all, is to await the fruits of its reforms. The blessing of same-sex marriages and full inclusion of women are certainly not matters of "convenience and transient popular opinion." It seems strange indeed that you think forbidding the use of contraceptives is core Gospel doctrine (though scripture never mentions it), but that "the dignity and rights ... of lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgendered people and of women" is not at the core of Christian belief. I think you should go deeper and look to final things: "the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels" (Mat 13:39). Jesus was perfectly clear about allowing the good seed to grow along with weeds until angels-- not you or I or the pope-- separate the one from the other in due time. Isn't it presumptuous to think you have the wisdom to know how to sift and winnow and separate and exclude when the Gospel calls these the work of angels?

• seanomelb | Oct 11, 2012, 06:36 PM EDT

  Gearoid4 obviously accepts the "written" word of the old testament which is full of fire,brimstone and mayhem which would not be acceptable by the majority of Catholics today.You're out of touch with modern beliefs and living in an fools world of archaic beliefs.

• seanomelb | Oct 11, 2012, 06:31 PM EDT

  The fascist CDF "the child of the inquisition" is continuing it's purge of liberal thought in the church.Smhrck5s is showing weakness in accepting without analyses every little crumb fed to him by the fascist CDF.

• Gearoid4 | Oct 11, 2012, 06:05 PM EDT

  @Eiriamach, Well, as I've explained, changes have been implemented in the mainline protestant churches, based on Tony Flannery's recipe, with a resultant catastrophic fall in terms of influence and adherents. It looks like these changes bought into the "spirt" of the age rather than the Holy Spirit of all ages. My glove metaphor is apt, as conforming to worldly values which are shaped by convenience and transient popular opinion betrays the permanent teachings which illuminate the gospels. The Church cannot change Her core teachings bequeathed to Her by Christ with the mandate to "bind"(accept) and "loose"(reject) doctrinal positions and practices. The priesthood is based firmly on the Person of Jesus Christ who chose 12 male apostles as his first generation of close disciples. The teaching on artificial contraception is based on it's immoral breaking of the mutual, loving self-giving between a husband and a wife and it's anti-life repercussions. The Church condemns all insults and physical attacks against people of same-sex attraction but holds that homosexual acts are intrinsically immoral as they go against the natural ontological reality that sex was designed for.

• barneyjo | Oct 11, 2012, 05:49 PM EDT

  Hey-ho - here we go again. The vatican, the CDF, the Pope cannot silence the truth, only those who seek to tell the truth. And the proof of that is the revalations that have come to light across the world about the church's management of paedophile clerics and the damage they have caused. Has it not even occurred to the most loyal and obedient of catholics that no one can silence God's truth? So, let the CDF continue on its merry and destructive way. God is truth, not man!!

• Shmrck5S | Oct 11, 2012, 05:39 PM EDT

  If you want to be a Baptist, or a Methodist, or Episcopal, then go be one. For myself, I choose to remain in communion with the one true Church, and strive, usually failing but always striving, to keep with the Church's traditions and teachings. The Church shouldn't have to change to make it easier for me to indulge my weaknesses. I've never considered myself bigger or more important than the Church.

• eiriamach | Oct 11, 2012, 04:29 PM EDT

  Gearoid4, Fr Flannery has NOT disputed any doctrine. In his concern for justice and to stem the exodus of Catholics from the Body of Christ, he raised perennial issues of Church tradition and discipline. For this--challenging autocratic male authoritarianism (a core RC "tradition")-- the CDF silenced him. The institution that cannot change its dysfunctional traditions and act on new revelation is dying or already-dead. What you call "core Christian teachings" are nowhere to be found in the words of Jesus but only proclaimed by popes faithful forever to human forebears and blind to the revealed needs of humanity. Your glove-in-the-mud metaphor mistakes the dynamics of change. If the gains won for oppressed groups through secular politics and without RC help look like "mud" to you, consider: Each of those gains was COUNTER-cultural, an idea blowing in the wind, and not in any way a capitulation to the culture of the times, yet each has utterly transformed the culture it challenged. As EC Bishop Andrus remarked, “The recognition of the dignity and rights, within civil society and the Church, of lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgendered people and of women is as core to our proclamation of the Gospel as our solidarity with the poor, with victims of violence and political oppression, and with the Earth.” And he added, as though in solidarity with Fr. Flannery, "we will not be silenced in our proclamation of God’s inclusion.”

• cillowen | Oct 11, 2012, 03:42 PM EDT

  he could be another marin luther - might catch

• SingleDonald | Oct 11, 2012, 03:31 PM EDT

  Regardless of how one feels about Father Flannery, no organization should present someone with papers, which contradict a position, and expect him/her to sign them. My response would be "Don't put words into my mouth", and I would then tear up the statement I was expected to sign! For those who forgot, Martin Luther tore up, then burned the Papal Bull of Excommunication. This was dramiticaly presented in the movie "Luther", staring Stacey Keach.

• Gearoid4 | Oct 11, 2012, 03:18 PM EDT

  There is a phrase which is not well known, but describes the effects of making the Church conform to the world as against society embracing the well-reasoned morals of the Church-"when you drop your glove in the mud, it is never the mud that gets glovey". We have seen the ill-effects of changing core Christian teachings to suit the current popular agenda, as in the steep decline across all the mainline protestant ecclesial communities in the US and Western world, in terms of influence and adherents.

• eiriamach | Oct 11, 2012, 02:49 PM EDT

  Censorship it unquestionably is. The Vatican forbade Fr Flannery and Fr Gerard Moloney, editor of the Redemptorist journal "Reality," to publish their columns. To quote Brendan Butler, "The culture of silence both on the part of those unjustly punished and those who use such silencing under the vow of religious and priestly obedience, is a grave stain on our Church. Priests, Religious and and Bishops are silenced and dismissed through processes that are shrouded in mystery and intrigue. When can we ever expect a whistle blowers’ charter in the Catholic Church -– I’m afraid we will have to await the ‘final judgement'" (ACP 28/7/12). @Keltikos, the fact that you may approve of censorship does not make it anything other than censorship, which is a violation of human rights and an enemy of truth.

• Keltikos | Oct 11, 2012, 01:38 PM EDT

  Fr. Flannery was never silenced. Some of the views he expressed as a priest within the Catholic Church run contrary to Church teaching. He was asked to take some time out to reflect on what he was doing. Much was made of this in the Irish Times who tend to champion ACP. Catholic Church teachings have always been counter cultural. Fr. Flannery thinks it should be different. Clerics who have followed this path in the past have contributed very little.

• irishrose524 | Oct 11, 2012, 01:19 PM EDT

  So... they don't like him because he's not a hateful enough? There's a surprise..

• Springfield9 | Oct 11, 2012, 12:49 PM EDT

  I was Batized a Catholic and believe that it is time for them to close up shop. The History of the Church in adultery, cruelty, perversity, greed, etc would fill volumes ...... The Empire of Rome is gone and its state church should also perish.

• KatieMurphy | Oct 11, 2012, 12:40 PM EDT

  the cDF is the successor to the murderous Inquistion of terror and stake burnings. Its the Popes KGB. He is like "comrade Putin" - same mentality. Putin was a KGB head. RATZinger ran the cDF for maybe a decade.....BTW somewhere I saw that Catholicism is now the biggest religion in the USA.............Thats from the FAUX news person who the pope hired to help spin the message. According to NCRonline, the only reason the church hasnt totally collapsed in membership is the influx of Latinos looking for a better life in America....Also, according to - I think it was NCR online - 1 in 10 Americans is ex catholic. Which, since catholics make up about a quarter of our population,tat suggests that maybe half of all catholics are no longer in the church.......My own personal experience is that almost everyone I know well who was cath is now no longer cath. Most of my friends how ever are str8 allies / gay people fighting for marriage equality under civil law for America's gay citizens..................Its real funny how the popes nastiness against gay people is all but wrecking the church in America - as it has done to itself in W. Europe. Where the only country without CUs or marriage (50-50) is Italy, and once catholic france will have full marriage under law for gays btw the end of the year.

• eiriamach | Oct 11, 2012, 11:21 AM EDT

  He has been silenced-- censored-- forbidden to write or publish his arguments against current CDF teachings. NONE of his views is "heretical," and none challenges any Christian doctrine or dogma. The CDF has no adequate response to the ACP's (and other national reform group's) calls for reform, so the Vatican imposes censorship on the reasoning the CDF cannot refute. Them's the facts. Get them right, uppinko.

• luckodeirish | Oct 11, 2012, 11:17 AM EDT

  Fr Flannery is a lovely man. He was a regular 'retreat' priest at our school, very kind and gentle and obviously open-minded. The Vatican and Catholic hierarchy needs a good shake up and without priests such as Tony speaking out, it will never happen. I applaud his forward thinking.

• uppinko | Oct 11, 2012, 11:14 AM EDT

  Please don't keep referring to Mr Flannery as Fr. He does not belong to the One,Holy, Catholic, Apostolic church. By the way stop this "being gagged" stuff. He is only being reprimanded for his heretical ideas.

• PhlutiePhan | Oct 11, 2012, 10:56 AM EDT

  @rugbyplayer: You might have forgotten a new key group on the world stage called radical Islam which actually goes back to the Middle Ages. Someone has to make the rules and interpret the Bible. So, let Father Flannery make his argument like Martin Luther based on the Bible and not on sociology and maybe he will develop some validity.

• Shmrck5S | Oct 11, 2012, 10:52 AM EDT

  Here, here Fr. Tony-let's all just do what we want to do. After all, all that God and Church business is just a spot of bother getting in the way of our wanting to kill babies and have indiscriminate sex. Authority? Organization? Leadership? Who needs any of that stuff? Don't we all just have a right to do whatever feels good without regard for our fellow humans?

• eiriamach | Oct 11, 2012, 10:41 AM EDT

  The CDF has become the Pharisaic crowd that Jesus warned against. Fr John O'Malley of Georgetown, writing an op-ed in today's NY Times, explains: "The bishops at Vatican II felt that more than a century of centralization needed to be tempered. But in their euphoria, they failed to reckon sufficiently with the resistance of entrenched bureaucracies — jealous of their authority and fearful of disorder — to change. A more participatory mode of church life took hold for 15 years or so after the council, but from on high it began to be more and more restricted, to the point that central control is now tighter than ever." Censorship supports CDF's absolute 'moral authority' to tell Catholics what to think and when not to think -- and too many Catholics still need that authoritarianism.

• CelticQueenUSA | Oct 11, 2012, 10:34 AM EDT

  Flannery has my prayers.

• markday | Oct 11, 2012, 10:08 AM EDT

  Tony Flannery is in the great tradition of men like the late Gary MacEoin of Curry, Sligo, who the Redemptorists refused to ordain in the 1940s for his outspoken views--and who went on to become a major voice and journalist for U.S. and Latin american Cathlics (he wrote 42 books)--as well as a Vatican gadfy. Gary would be happy to see that despite today's repressive environment, cracks are appearing in the Rock of Peter, that positive change is inevitable. Go, Tony Flannery,go! It is alwys darkest just before the dawn. The People of God will prevail.

• rugbyplayer | Oct 11, 2012, 09:23 AM EDT

  Father Flannery do what Martin Luther said centuries ago when the Vatican sent him a bull of excommunication: "tell the Pope to shove it up his ass!" The greatest threat to individual freedom since the fall of Communism in the world today is the imperious nature of the Vatican.

• revmike | Oct 11, 2012, 08:13 AM EDT

  This merely proves how petty and closed the churh is