Fine Gael Official to Chair Session of Catholic Priests

By Patsy Mcgarry
Irish Times
May 2, 2012

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0502/1224315456996.html

Fine Gael general secretary Tom Curran is to chair a session of a day-long conference in Dublin next Monday organised by the Association of Catholic Priests.

Redemptorist priest Fr Tony Flannery, a member of the association’s leadership team and brother of Fine Gael strategist Frank Flannery, was censured last March by the Vatican because of his views on contraception, celibacy and the ordination of women.

He was also advised to withdraw from the association. Fr Flannery was advised by Rome to spend six weeks in a monastery, and while there to “pray and reflect” on his situation and begin “to think with the church” (sentire com ecclesia).

He and colleague Fr Gerard Moloney, who is editor of the Redemptorists’ Reality magazine, have been banned by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on account of their liberal views.

The association’s “Towards an Assembly of the Irish Catholic Church” takes place at the Regency Hotel in Whitehall from 10.15am to 4.30pm on May 7th.