Tony Flannery

Wednesday, October 18th, at 9.30pm

A personal insight to the life of Redemptorist priest Tony Flannery who was suspended from public ministry by the Vatican in 2012 for expressing his support for women’s ordination, optional clerical celibacy, same sex relationships and his liberal views on homosexuality.

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Ordained in 1974, Tony Flannery is a well-known priest and missionary and native of Attymon, Co. Galway

11 years ago, he was summoned to Rome by the Superior General of the Redemptorists to find his writing in Reality magazine had been the subject of complaint to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

A priest, whose name I am withholding from this publication, has written this letter to the new man in the DDF. I am very grateful to him.

Dear Cardinal Fernandez:

​I am a retired priest……  First, I’d like to congratulate you on your new assignment and on your elevation to the cardinalate.  I’m of the opinion that Pope Francis only picks the best.  So, I have the highest regard for you at the outset and trust that you will make a lasting contribution to the Church.

Thanks, Brendan, for this, and for your consistent support since the beginning.

Before Angelo Roncalli was elected as Pope John XXIII in 1958, he served in the Vatican diplomatic corps, first as nuncio to Bulgaria, an unpromising appointment during which he was often lonely and discouraged. After Bulgaria, to his greatdisappointment he was moved sideways to Turkey and he often wondered why.

Later, as pope he called into the offices of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and found written on his file the words: ‘Roncalli, suspected of modernism’.