Another Redemptorist in the Firing Line! Brendan Butler

By Brendan Butler
Association of Catholic Priests
August 3, 2012

http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2012/07/another-redemptorist-in-the-firing-line-brendan-butler/

The Redemptorist Order seems to be in the firing line of the Vatican and should be proud of such a distinction. After the silencing of two Redemptorist priests, Gerry Moloney and Tony Flannery here now Archbishop Bezak, a 52 year old Redemptorist Archbishop of Trnnava, in Slovakia has been personally dismissed by Pope Benedict after refusing to go quietly . He had been only in the job for three years and appears to have upset his very conservative predecessor Archbishop Sokol by investigating alleged financial irregularities in the running of the Archdiocese over the past twenty years of Sokol’s reign. The dismissed Bezak spoke at his last mass saying only that the Vatican had ordered him ‘not to speak to the media about the circumstances surrounding his dismissal ‘.

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 ‘.