Irish Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery Gets The Ray Bourgeios Treatment From The CDF

Pope Benedict shakes his crozier at yet another dedicated priest who made the mistake of discussing women's ordination.  Is this not the 21st Century or does this Pope really think the Church never changes.

Irish Redemptorist priest Tony Flannery has been given a set of orders from the CDF in which he must recant certain past statements involving the ordination of women, homosexuality, birth control, and divorce and remarriage.  Fr Flannery was one of the founders of the Association of Catholic Priests, and he has also been banned from working with that group until he writes a letter to be approved by the CDF renouncing his previously mentioned indiscretions.  Essentially he faces the same banishment from the Redemptorists and excommunication/laicization leveled on Fr Roy Bourgeios.  Loyalty must truly be a one way street in the Vatican.  The following article is taken from the ACP website.  The story is also in today's NY Times. This stuff is nauseating.


REDEMPTORIST SUBJECTED TO “FRIGHTENING PROCEDURES REMINISCENT OF THE INQUISITION”

Redemptorist Fr. Tony Flannery is threatened with excommunication from the Catholic Church for suggesting that, in the future, women might become priests and calling for this and other matters to be open for discussion. Fr. Flannery, (66) who joined the Redemptorists in 1964 at seventeen and was ordained ten years later, has been told that if he is to remain in the Church and in his Congregation, he must also guarantee not to attend meetings of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) until he has publicly agreed to the conditions laid down.

Fr. Flannery was forbidden to minister as a priest for most of the past year, and this will continue until he meets the requirements of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“I have been ordered not to engage with the media or publish any books or articles,”
he told a press briefing in Dublin today. “I have also been ordered not to have any involvement, public or private, with the ACP. I was put under a formal precept of obedience not to attend the AGM of the ACP last November by Michael Brehl, Superior General of the Redemptorists. But he made it clear he’d been instructed by the CDF to issue it.”

Fr Flannery will be allowed back into ministry only if he writes, signs and publishes an article (pre-approved by the CDF) accepting the Catholic Church can never ordain women to the priesthood and accepting all Church stances on contraception, homosexuality, and the refusal of the sacraments to people in second relationships.

“I could not possibly put my name to such an article without impugning my own integrity and conscience,” he said today. “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is orchestrating all this while refusing to communicate with me. I have had no direct communication with them. I have never been given an opportunity to meet my accusers, or to understand why this action is being taken against me when I’ve raised the same issues, consistently, for decades.”

The documentation Fr Flannery received, apparently from the CDF took the form of a typed A4 page (not a letterhead) which was unsigned.
“The only reason that I can be sure that this came from the CDF is that Michael Brehl, the head of the Redemptorists, told me it did,” he said. “All requests for direct communication with the CDF have been ignored.””
Fr. Flannery described as “frightening, disproportionate and reminiscent of the Inquisition” the actions against him.

“I have served the Church, the Redemptorists and the People of God for two thirds of my life,” he pointed out. “Throughout that time, I have in good conscience raised issues I believed important for the future of the Church in books and essays largely read by practicing Catholics, rather than raising them in mainstream media. I’m hardly a major and subversive figure within the Church deserving excommunication and expulsion from the religious community within which I have lived since my teens.”

The choice facing him, he stated at a press briefing today, Sunday 20th January, was between deciding between Rome and his conscience.
“I must also question if the threats are a means, not just of terrifying me into submission, but of sending a message to any other priest expressing views at variance with those of the Roman Curia,” he added. “Submitting to these threats would be a betrayal of my ministry, my fellow priests and the Catholic people who want change.”

Fr. Flannery said that because he believes he is being subjected to unfair treatment, he has taken legal advice under Canon and Civil law to help him defend his rights as a member of the Church and as an Irish citizen. (At which point he will find out like Roy Bourgeios that he has no rights in this current Vatican.)

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I have to be honest, there is a part of me that just can't believe this kind of thing is happening in Roman Catholicism in the 21st century.  I'm not just talking about the inquisitional flavor of how priests like Fr Flannery are being taken out and silenced, but more so the incomprehensible fact that the priesthood of pedophiles like Marcial Maciel was protected by the same cast of characters that excommunicate other priests over women's ordination.  Has Catholicism in it's Vatican heart reached such a nadir that pedophile priests who rape and sexually abuse children have more rights with in the Vatican than priests who speak on the issue of women's ordination?  Is questioning an intellectual position about a priestly discipline really considered more grave than actually abusing the physical bodies of children and utterly undermining their connection with their own existence?  

I get that Pope Benedict and his cronies really and truly want a much smaller more compliant Roman Catholic Church in the West.  I also get that they don't appear to give a rat's ass about how many lay Catholics they drive from the faith anymore than they ever gave a damn about any abused children.  In the end this is all about maintaining the current clerical system and nothing else.  This is the reason Pope Benedict has so frequently stated the Church must be pruned.  This is a strategy designed to disempower protest and reform movements before they can be effective.  It essentially states "we don't care what you think, you are not real members of our Church, so we don't have to pay any attention to anything you say". 

If Satan actually exists, his post office box is in Vatican City, where the smoke of Satan is so strong some people seem to think it's incense and others are just choking on it.