Tony Flannery

From the Outside: Rethinking Church Doctrine

by Tony Flannery 

Red Stripe Press, 120pp

 Redemptorist Tony Flannery was suspended from public ministry in 2012 for expressing controversial views on issues like the ordination of women, same-sex marriage and the evolution of priesthood. His latest book describes life on the “outside” of the Catholic Church, which has afforded him the time to reflect on church doctrine and practice.

Flannery remains critical of many areas of Catholic teaching, including the Immaculate Conception.

This from a priest a good few years older than myself. Lovely.

I have just finished reading “From the outside”. What a hurricane!! A hurricane that left nothing standing in its path.  “From the outside” is not for the faint hearted.  I thought he let the Irish Church off lightly just by saying the Irish Bishops were arrogant. They were more than arrogant. They were intolerant, bad-tempered and, because of their superiority complex, destroyed people’s careers.

This is a review of my latest book, From the Outside, and of some of my earlier works, by Eamon Maher.

It is published in the March/April issue of the Dominican publication, Spirituality.

From the Inside to the Margins: Tracing a Priest’s Fall from Grace

EAMON MAHER

I first met Tony Flannery in 1976 when I was a student in Cistercian College Roscrea. The Redemptorists came to give us a retreat which I reckon they may have found somewhat challenging – former Taoiseach Brian Cowen was in my class and he was one of many who prided themselves on raising thorny issues of a theological or moral nature!