Tony Flannery

Church Reform: National and International

For the past six years I have been actively involved in the movement for Church Reform. My involvement began with a meeting to consider setting up an association for priests whose purpose was to give priests a voice in church and society, and to support them in the many challenges priests face today. The meeting was quickly followed with the founding of the Association of Catholic Priests In the autumn of 2010.

Dingle

Last Saturday I was in Dingle, speaking on the Church and my dealing with the CDF, as part of Feile no Bealthaine, an annual weekend festival held in the town.
It was held in the old courthouse at 2.00 in the afternoon. The format that was decided by the organisers was an interview. And the person chosen to interview me was Dominican, Michael Commane.
The format worked really well. Michael is experienced in the media world, and he did an excellent job, and made the whole thing very easy for me.

An appeal by dissident theologians for “accountability and transparency” within the Catholic Church’s powerful Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has yet to receive a response from the Vatican authorities.
Vatican senior spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said he had not read the document, adding that it was very unlikely that there would be any public response from the CDF.
Other Holy See insiders suggested that there was nothing new in the dissidents’ critique, adding that it looked like similar criticism “voiced 10, 20 or 30 years ago”.