Fellow Priests Support Galway Redemptorist Silenced over Stance on Sex Abuse Scandal

By Bernie Ni Fhlatharta
Connacht Tribune
April 12, 2012

http://www.galwaynews.ie/25254-fellow-priests-support-galway-redemptorist-silenced-over-stance-sex-abuse-scandal


Fellow members of the Association of Catholic Priests have voiced their solidarity with the Galway priest who has been silenced by the Vatican over his backing for the Taoiseach’s condemnation of the Church’s response to clerical sex abuse in Ireland.

Fr Tony Flannery, who is based in the Redemptorist Monastery in Esker, was silenced following his public support of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s attack on rhe Vatican’s handling child sex abuse allegations. An Taoiseach, speaking in the Dail earlier this year, called on the Catholic Church to apologise.

Fr Flannery who was also one of the founders of the Association of Catholic Priests, visited Rome two months ago to argue his case after he was censured by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which ordered that he stop writing in the Redemptorist Order’s own magazine, Reality or on the Association’s website.

The Association has issued a statement saying how disturbed they are at their member being silenced.

“We believe that such an approach, in its individual focus on Fr Flannery and inevitably by implication on the members of the Association, is an extremely ill-advised intervention in the present pastoral context in Ireland. We affirm in the strongest possible terms our confidence in and solidarity with Fr Flannery and we wish to make clear our profound view that this intervention is unfair, unwarranted and unwise.

See full story and editorial in this week's Connacht Tribune.