Tony Flannery

For somebody of my generation, I think I got into social media fairly quickly. Not all aspects of social media, mainly just one, Twitter. I loved Twitter from the beginning, and found it enormously useful.

Two aspects in particular: It gave me access to a whole range of news and comment. I got links to good articles in media outlets like the National Catholic Reporter, La Croix, and many others. I learned through it what was happening in the various Church Reform movements around the world.

This quote, from Ricardo da Silva, and American Jesuit, sums up for me what has been, and continues to be, a major obstacle to inclusion in the Church — the use of specialised language in the dialogue between authorities and theologians that is largely meaningless to the average believer.

Who, after all, is the synod for? We speak of a synod that is more inclusive, participatory, transparent and accountable, calling for shared responsibility among the people of God.

What I am going to say in this short article, I have said many times in the past fourteen years, but there is a sense in which I need to keep saying it. It is also provoked by a current dispute in the Irish political world, in which a politician is accusing his party of using what he called a “kangaroo court” in dealing with a dispute in which he is involved.