The popular Irish priest and spiritual writer Fr Tony Flannery, who has been suspended from ministry on instruction from Rome, said Mass in public last week for only the second time in eight years. Is it now time for the Irish bishops to intervene in a case causing increasing scandal?

Last week, as Fr Tony Flannery put it, the “various authorities relented” and he was given permission to celebrate the funeral Mass of his brother and fellow Redemptorist, Fr Peter Flannery, at Mount St Alphonsus church in Limerick. Apart from celebrating a public Mass on his seventieth birthday in a community centre in the village of Killimordaly, Co Galway, nearly four years ago, this was the first time he had said Mass publicly since his suspension from ministry in 2012.
The warmth of the Redemptorists’ support for him as he grieved for his older brother and fellow “Red” prompted Flannery to reflect ruefully: “I have often said in recent years that I didn’t have much interest in going back to ministry, if Church authorities were to allow me. But after the experience last Monday, maybe I need to rethink that. Maybe I still have something to give to the ministry, and maybe I would benefit from being able to minister again.”

Flannery’s new book, From the Outside: Rethinking Church Doctrine, launched last month, is already in its second printing. But this publishing success has been overshadowed by his latest spat with the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF). On 16 September, Fr Flannery revealed that the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog had sent him a new set of statements of Church teaching to sign before his readmission to the ministry would be considered. He is adamant he will not submit to their demands.