Irish Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery is to celebrate a public Mass, five years after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) forbade him to minister publicly for expressing liberal views on women priests, the Eucharist and the Church’s teachings on sexuality.
Announcing his decision to challenge the stricture imposed by the Vatican in 2012, the priest, who turns 70 this month, stressed he was not risking excommunication just for the sake of defying church authorities. Nor would the Mass be the beginning of an unofficial ministry on his part. “I have no wish to start a new ecclesial movement,” he stated.
He will celebrate the Mass at a community centre in his home village of Killimordaly Co Galway in the Diocese of Clonfert.
Referring to his current situation as a “limbo” where he is “neither fully in or fully out of the priesthood”, Fr Flannery said the Mass would be “a way of acknowledging who I am” and the 40 years of his life in which he served as a priest.
Admitting that resolution of the impasse between the Vatican and himself remains a long way off, the Redemptorist said his problem was not with the Church exercising authority but rather that it should be exercised justly.
“In my experience, and in the experience of many others whom I have come to know in these past years, church authority is exercised in a way that is unjust and abusive,” he said.
The co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests expressed the hope that his action would highlight the “urgent need for change in the way the Vatican deals with people who express opinions that are considered to be at odds with official church teaching”.
Fr Flannery said he was frustrated by the fact that a critique of CDF’s procedures which he and the Australian theologian Paul Collins had drawn up, had not drawn any response from the Vatican.
“The sheer frustration of trying to deal with people who won’t even acknowledge your existence is difficult,” he said.
Another issue the priest is seeking to highlight is his contention that the Eucharist “is not in the ownership” of the CDF nor the Vatican but “belongs to the believing communities”.
“Clearly the priesthood is in major crisis – we’re facing a Eucharistic famine because of the policies pursued by the Church on who can celebrate the Eucharist. As the Church holds on to this strict male celibate requirement, it is actually depriving the people around the world of their entitlement to the Eucharist,” he said.
The Irish bishops will be in Rome on their ad limina visit when Fr Flannery celebrates his Mass on 22 January. A spokesman for the bishops did not respond to The Tablet’s questions but stated, “The Redemptorist Congregation is the ecclesiastical authority for Father Flannery.”
Neither the Vatican nor the Redemptorists responded to requests for comment.
The Vatican has indicated to Fr Flannery, through his Redemptorist superiors, that he will only be allowed to return to ministry if he agrees to write, sign and publish a statement attesting women should never be ordained as priests and that he will also adhere to church teaching on matters like contraception and homosexuality.
According to Fr Flannery, no member of the bishops’ conference has made contact with him over the past five years. But he said, “If any church authority was willing to speak directly to me, I would be very happy to talk to them. That has been my position from the very beginning.”
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