UNITED STATES
The Washington Times
By Meredith Somers – The Washington Times – Tuesday, October 21, 2014
A blacklisted priest is calling on Catholics to keep up the momentum for change generated by this month’s Extraordinary Synod of Catholic Bishops, which divided church leaders on how welcoming the 2,000-year-old faith should be toward 21st century issues like gay marriage and divorce.
In his address to synod participants, Pope Francis said the church has one year “to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront.”
But Father Tony Flannery, founder of the Irish Association of Catholic Priests, said Tuesday that the next 12 months “will be enormously important in the life of the church.”
“A major impact is the changing tone of the synod,” he said. “They began by talking about the real lives of people. That’s a real change for the church [as] normally it starts by talking about doctrine.”
Father Flannery shared his vision of a more accepting church during a newsmaker press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, the first stop of an 18-city speaking tour across the country.
A native of Galway, Ireland, he is a member of the Redemptorist Congregation. He was ordained a priest in 1974 and is the author of several books and was a columnist for the Redemptorist magazine Reality.
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