Tony Flannery

When An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, visited Pope Francis recently he agreed to take a message from me to the Pope.
Below is the text of what I sent to Pope Francis:

Your Holiness, Pope Francis,

Since 1994, the credibility of the Catholic Church in Ireland has been severely damaged due to the clerical sexual abuse problems. This led to many people, even committed Catholics, asking serious questions about the structure and practices of our Church, and the reasons why Church authorities failed to deal properly with the emerging scandal.

After watching the interview of the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, by Gay Byrne in the Meaning of Life programme of November 20, I wrote the following letter to the Nuncio:

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​November 21, 2016

Archbishop Charles Browne
The Apostolic Nunctiature
183, Navan Rd, Dublin 7

Re: Would You Believe Programme, November 20, 2016, RTE

Dear Archbishop,
When you appeared on the above programme you stated that I had been asked by my superiors not to celebrate Mass publicly.

I have now got to the stage that, whenever a discussion about what to do with the water network in Ireland comes on radio or television I immediately either switch over or turn off.
Proper preservation and care for the vital resource of water is essential; with climate change accelerating, and large areas of the world turning into desert, before long water will become a matter of life or death for many millions of people.