Tony Flannery

http://cdn.rasset.ie/manifest/audio/2016/0110/20160110_rteradio1-sundaywithmiriam-sundaywith_cl10512573_10514826_261_/manifest.m3u8
This is the link to the interview my brother Frank and myself did on RTE radio on Sunday, January 10th with Miriam O’Callaghan. It was a new experience for both of us to be on a programme together. Our lives have gone in different directions, and the issues we were talking about were very different, but I think it still made a good programme.

As a follow up to the programme I got this email this morning; as you can see it is a copy of an email he has sent to the bishops, and indeed to Church authorities all over the place.

Maybe it is that I am ageing, but I find myself having less and less tolerance for all the negativity being churned out by various media outlets about life generally in Ireland, and especially about people in positions of authority.
A classic example was the much hyped Prime Time programme on corruption in politics. How many phone calls did they make to politicians, assuming false identities and trying to get people to act corruptly.

‘I never thought I’d live to see the day,’ is a common response when something unprecedented happens. An elderly priest I know made the comment when he read that Pope Francis had told the bishops in Rome at the recent Synod not to be afraid to say what they felt and that he wanted them to ‘debate, debate, debate’. Changed times indeed.
Not so long ago bishops never contradicted each other.