Tony Flannery

3rd International Conference of Church Reform Network; Chicago, October 2016

Forty two people gathered in Chicago for four days last week to take part in this conference. They came from eleven different countries in four continents. Most of the participants were representing a Church reform movement. They was a mixture of lay, clergy, women and men. All the main priests associations were represented, from Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Slovakia, Australia, the U.S.

Tomorrow morning (Sunday 16th) I fly out to Chicago to participate in the 3rd International Conference of the network of Church Reform Organisations.
I am really looking forward to it. It is a participative conference, confined to leaders or representatives of reform groups. There are forty one people attending, which is about the maximum that can be managed in a participative gathering, with no formal presentations. I know most of the people, men and women, who are coming, and they constitute a really interesting group of people.

I am glad to see that Archbishop Joe Tobin of Indianapolis has been chosen as one of the men to be made a cardinal by Pope Francis.
Joe was superior general of the Redemptorists for a good while, and he did a good job. He is enlightened and clear thinking, with a definite liberal streak to him. After he completed his time with us he was put into the position of second-in-command of the Congregation for Religious in the Vatican.