Today’s Irish
Independent has three separate articles, including an editorial, devoted to
the fact that liberal Redemptorist and “Association of Catholic Priests”
founder Fr Tony Flannery has been
contacted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over his dissident
views. The first of these comes under the headline “New Vatican ordeal for Fr Flannery.”
You know the sort of stuff the articles contain. Church’s
theological watchdog, increasing scrutiny, language of the past, 16th
century mindset, out-of-touch men in the Vatican, where is Christian compassion
in all this, and so on and so forth. But the style is strikingly lazy and
puerile, even by the standards of the anti-clerical Irish media.
Three times we are told that Fr Flannery has been “silenced”,
without any explanation of what that “silencing” consists of. Has he been
forbidden by the Church to open his mouth? Forbidden to preach? Forbidden to
publish his opinions? Well, as far as I am aware, he has been asked not to
publish articles in the liberal Redemptorist magazine Reality. And, um ... that’s it. That doesn’t seem like too much of
a silencing, given that Reality is one
of those magazines you see getting dog-eared and mouldy on the magazine rack at
the back of churches. Meanwhile, the ACP’s website announces that Fr Flannery will be the main speaker at the group’s AGM in Dublin on 10 November. “Silenced”,
indeed!
One of the articles is written by Garry O’Sullivan, managing
director of the increasingly risible Irish
Catholic. Mr O’Sullivan thinks the likes of Fr Flannery have done sterling
service to the Church and should be rewarded by being allowed to air whatever
opinions they like without anyone contradicting them:
“Fr
Flannery and others hope for a church that is open to married and women
priests; want a re-evaluation of the teaching on contraception and a more
sensitive teaching on homosexuality. Of course, those in the CDF would say that
if we want to evangelise Irish people and tell them about the good things that
the church teaches, then we have to have our priests on the same page. But that
is an old church way of looking at this.
Would it not be better to
take on the liberal priests and instead of silencing them, offer counter
arguments, as St Paul says, but in love? I'm not seeing the church St Paul
spoke of and I'm certainly not feeling the love, but I am seeing a well-meaning
group of clerical lawyers and officials locked away in a Vatican cocoon
creating a climate of fear among elderly clergy in Ireland. They have, by
virtue of 30 or 40 years ministering in the priesthood, earned the right to
disagree with me or you or even an official in the CDF who, looking out on St
Peter's Colonnade, wishes complicated Irish Catholics could be as easily
cleaned up for a speedy return to a time of supposed certainty.”
Well, in those “30 or 40 years” we have reached a situation
where only 14% of Dubliners go to Mass every week and where half of Mass-goers,
according to one poll, do not believe in Christ’s Real Presence at Holy
Communion. Fr Flannery and his ilk appear to have done a strikingly abysmal job
of passing on the faith. I am not sure that they have “earned the right” to
anything.
There was one bright note in this otherwise gloomy
collection of pieces, however. Mr O’Sullivan, in his article, refers to “liberal
ageing priests like Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery and, among others, Fr Brian D’Arcy.”
Of course, traditional Catholics like to point out that liberal
Catholics tend to be a greying bunch, and that they are not leaving many theological
heirs. But it’s a fact seldom mentioned by the liberals, whose whole worldview
is after all based on the premise that their watered-down form of Christianity
is more “relevant” and in tune with the times than that nasty old pre-Vatican
II stuff. So it is striking to see a journalist who is highly sympathetic to
the liberal priests stating frankly that they are a dying breed. The phrase “ageing
liberal” is repeated in the editorial; the writer seems unaware of its
pejorative edge. There can be no doubt that liberal Catholics are suffering
from a demographic crisis when even their friends in the media are admitting as
much.
Oh, and tucked away on page 26 of the Independent is the story that 14-year old Malala Yousafzai of
Pakistan was shot in the head by Islamists for spreading “Western, secular
values” on her blog. But never mind that – the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith are the ones we should be afraid of!
