Tony Flannery: I never wanted to be seen as martyr or victim but I can’t stay silent on my suspension as a Catholic priest
Article from Tony’s blog and The Irish Times. Link to article on Tony’s blog:
I was sanctioned for speaking in favour of female priests and changing the church’s teaching on sexuality. I remain suspended 12 years on
Fr Tony Flannery says he was not given the benefit of due process by church authorities.
Following the Misneach TG4 programme, produced by Midas Productions and broadcast last autumn but given a repeat airing recently, which dealt with my relationship with church authorities, I got considerable response from viewers.
Link to ‘my relationship with church authorities’:
It gave a detailed account of the treatment meted out to me by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican censorship board that purports to guard orthodoxy and root out heresy. For me, the main value of the programme was that it told my story in a clear, coherent manner. People who responded to me afterwards said that, although they had already known certain aspects of my situation, it was the first time they learned precisely what had happened.
What struck most people about my treatment by the Vatican was the absence of due process. In the resolution of any dispute, natural justice demands at least the following steps: a written account of the complaint against the person; the defendant having an opportunity to cross-examine the complainant and state his/her case in the course of defence; and access to an appeals process.
Most people are familiar with these principles as they observe the workings of civil society. By contrast, the programme portrayed a disciplinary system wherein I had no chance to defend my views, and judgment was passed – and actions demanded of me were decided – even before I got a chance to open my mouth. I wasn’t given the identity of whoever had made a complaint about me. Someone in close contact with the Vatican suggested it was a senior member of the Irish church, but there is no proof of this.
I am always relieved to hear discussion on church teachings being broadened, but what is the difference between saying something in 2012 and saying the same thing in 2024?
People have questioned how a church could treat one of its members in this fashion. I can only say that the church seems to operate as if in a bubble and is utterly confident that it knows what is “good” for the person deemed to have erred. Vatican congregations, or dicasteries as they are now called, have similarities with what we know in civil society as government departments. The difference is that while government departments are accountable to the citizens through elected representatives, Vatican congregations are not accountable to church members, or indeed to anybody outside of that narrow network of its ruling beaurcracy, the curia.
Much of this culture of secrecy and high-handedness came back to me as I watched the recent documentary on the late Eamonn Casey.
Link to reaction to E Casey documentary:
In the later stage of his life he was not ministering as a priest but people did not know the reason for this.
When I was put out of ministry I was warned to “tell no one”. I would consider myself superhuman, or very foolish, if I did not tell those who were closest to me. At the time, in 2012, I wanted to protect my reputation as it was a period in Ireland when any priest who suddenly dropped out of sight was the subject of rumour, innuendo, hints and allegations. It was a relief when the media began to question me about my absence from church ministry.
It struck some viewers of the programme last autumn as odd that 12 years later I still remain suspended. Many priests and people are now publicly favouring the sacramental ordination of women and are of the view that church teaching on sexuality needs to change – opinions that led to my suspension. Such views, and others equally challenging, feature regularly in the synodal process currently taking place in the church, and nobody is being sanctioned in any way. I am always relieved to hear discussion on church teachings being broadened but I, and many who watched the Misneach programme, wonder what is the difference between saying something in 2012 and saying the same thing in 2024?
Finally, the central government of the church is expert at washing its hands of bad news. In institutional language, the Vatican can say it did not remove me from public ministry, it merely instructed the Superior of the Redemptorists in Rome to do so. Sadly, my religious family submitted in a supine fashion and, in doing so, colluded with the injustice.
So where am I now? I don’t want to become a martyr, or to be seen as a victim. I received and continue to receive great support for which I am very grateful, but I am also aware that some people, both within the Redemptorist Congregation and the wider Catholic community, while acknowledging that I did not get fair treatment, wish I would just shut up about it. I understand this view – indeed I have often said the same thing about people who repeatedly publicly pound home their stance on various issues. So why do I go on about it all?
I am not alone; other people in the church have been treated in a similar way. Maybe I hope that if my situation continues to be highlighted, it just might force Catholic Church authorities to “act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with their God”.
Fr Tony Flannery is a Redemptorist priest.
Tony is doing the church a great service by not “shutting up about it”. Continuing institutional abuses of power are a terrible blight in the church and an obstacle to its mission of sharing the Gospel: truly a scandal. Any Synodal Pathway worth its salt must address the issue urgently and determinedly, otherwise it will be shown to be like salt which has lost its flavour and deserves to be thrown away because it is worthless.
Might Bishop Brendan Leahy and Bishop Alan McGuckian bring up the injustice being done to Fr. Tony Flannery at the Synod in October 2024?
Transparency and accountability are much talked about as part of Synodality. It would be good to see the talking leading to actions.
While I have every sympathy with a person who considers himself or herself a victim of injustice and unfair treatment I feel it would be helpful if the full facts of a case were known.
Fr. Tony, when you say “I was sanctioned for speaking in favour of female priests and changing the church’s teaching on sexuality.” What actually did you say, preach or write?
Twelve years ago is a long time for people to remember so it would be helpful if sources in the public domain were referenced by you (i.e. in books or published articles). I do not wish to establish a ‘public forum’ on your opinions (much less decide on their Catholicity) but I would like to have some reliable access to factual information.
While you say the Misneach TG4 programme “gave a detailed account of the treatment meted out to me by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” it wasn’t clear to me as a viewer what it was asked to decide upon.
I recall Joseph Ratzinger, who was once head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, being asked in an interview why he had condemned or silenced certain theologians replying that he never condemned or judged anyone. He only ever gave an opinion on whether or not what they had written, and which was before him on his desk, was consistent with Catholic tradition and constant teaching.
I think it is disingenuous for you to describe the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church as “the Vatican censorship board that purports to guard orthodoxy and root out heresy.”
Its history, organization and responsibilities are clearly set out in the Vatican website:
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_14071997_en.html
That link supplied by Peadar tells us straight away that the Dicastery there described, the DDF, is already a significantly different entity from the CDF of 2011/12 which censured Tony and others.
Intriguingly it also tells us that working directly under the Prefect of the DDF there is now a ‘Promotor of Justice’. Did that office exist in 2012, and, if not, what exactly is its remit today? Would there be any point in approaching the current Promotor of Justice – P. Robert Joseph Geisinger, S.I. – on Tony’s behalf, with a view to restoring confidence in the Vatican’s concern for Justice?
Tony and I have disagreed significantly – e.g. In relation to the Creed – but my distinct impression of the process that led to his suspension in 2012 was that it was both diversionary and vindictively unfair.
In particular his questioning whether the priesthood as it developed historically was necessarily the one intended by Jesus of Nazareth was given, opportunistically, the most extreme possible interpretation by the CDF. He was then given no opportunity whatever to explain himself – and from this unkind and unpastoral beginning his ostracisation continued. There was never any attempt at the kind of reconciliation that was attempted by the DDF, if we are to believe recent reports, in relation to Archbishop Vigano.
By ‘diversionary’ I mean that the context in 2012 was one of continuing vexation in Ireland – and globally – over revelations of failure at the highest levels of the church to protect its most vulnerable members. A papal letter of 2010 had sought to blame secular influences in Ireland for the abuse catastrophe – and this was followed by a ‘visitation’ of the Irish church by high-ranking prelates – who never even tried to get to the root of the cover-up culture that Irish bishops had themselves owned up to in December 2009.
It was in the aftermath, in 2012, that the axe fell on Tony and others, including Brian D’arcy – who had been especially indignant in print over the mishandling of clerical abuse.
I could not help contrasting this severity with the leniency shown by the church’s higher ranks to its own members – e.g. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston – who had so signally failed in the most obvious duty implied by the wielding of the shepherd’s staff.
That there was then, and is still, a cover-up of the cover-up is plain – and I see the targeting of Tony et al as part of that.
‘Promotor of Justice’ is a title that claims a lot. We would all like to believe the claim. Peadar is correct in saying we need to be able to consult the precise detail of the charges against Tony, and my memory too is fallible – but the questions of what Tony wrote and why he and others were censured and dealt with in that way are not quite the same questions.
The practice of scapegoating is too common when scandals break and policemen, to prove their dedication, set themselves to rounding up ‘the usual suspects’.
Seán, (#4) it may be of interest but I notice that in her welcome message to the website of the Embassy of Ireland to the Holy See the Ambassador of Ireland to the Holy See, Her Excellency Frances Collins says:
“Ireland and the Holy See share longstanding foreign policy priorities such as climate change, human rights, sustainable development, eradicating hunger, nuclear disarmament, migration and human trafficking, freedom of religion or belief, and peaceful resolution of conflicts.”
https://www.ireland.ie/en/holysee/vaticancity/ambassador/
It may be a time to explore new avenues for peaceful resolutions of conflicts close to home.
Seán@4, thank you for that very reasonable reply to Peadar.
I was about to respond too and, quite frankly, I find it very hard to believe that you, Peadar, a priest resident in Ireland, are not completely aware of the issues involved and the history of Tony’s appalling mistreatment by the CDF.
I would hope you are not trying to undermine Tony further.
And, Peadar, your comment @5 is completely irrelevant.
We have just finished watching Stolen on RTÉ I. I would be interested to hear what you thought of that, Peadar.
And, also, what that well-organised group of traditional zealots thought, the group that Brendan told us about who were so quick out of the blocks to condemn the ACP’s very enlightened statement after the unfortunate Fr. Burke took it upon himself to judge someone else’s conscience.
Paddy, #6, unfortunately I was unable to watch ‘Silence’ last night but I hope to see ‘Minceir’ at 9.35 tonight Tuesday RTE1.
I think the ACP provides an important forum on this webpage for all to comment on what they see or read and express a negative or positive reaction or response.
Paddy, I appreciate your taking time to read my recent comments here (and others too) and responding thoughtfully when joining the discussion.
In his letter of appointment to Archbishop Fernandes as Head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Francis himself clearly acknowledges that immoral methods have been used previously and that a completely new approach is required:
“The Dicastery over which you will preside in other times came to use immoral methods. Those were times when, rather than promoting theological knowledge, possible doctrinal errors were pursued. What I expect from you is certainly something very different.”
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2023/07/01/230701a.html
Tony Flannery is one of the many victims of these immoral methods in vigour until recently and unfortunately he remains victimised.
Confessing past immoral methods is good, but without reparation to those mistreated, the crying injustice remains.
Paddy Ferry,@6, said he would be interested to hear my thoughts, as a priest, on the documentary Stolen. I have now been able to view both Stolen and Minceir which were shown back to back Monday and Tuesday at the beginning of this week on RTÉ 1.
I think anyone watching both would experience a range of emotions and thoughts difficult to coherently articulate. But unless one was directly affected, as many of those speaking in Stolen and Minceir clearly were, then it is impossible to comprehend and plumb the depths of suffering and anguish experienced and brought to our screens, and still continuing today for many of those interviewed. And I don’t think the purpose of these new documentaries was to solicit responses familiar to us from GOGGLEBOX.
Anne Mulhall in her review of women’s writing in recent decades, (Life Writing and Personal Testimony, 1970-Present, ch.20, in A History of Modern Irish Women’s Literature, edited by Hether Ingman and Clíona Ó Gallchoir, Cambridge University Press, 2018) beginning in the seventies said: “the memoirs surveyed in this section share a belief in the transformative effects of women’s articulation of their own experience.” Mulhall goes on to say: “Women’s lack of agency over their bodies and lives is a recurring theme in life writing from this period.” And says: “The 1980’s witnessed an aggressive battle for the survival of a rigidly patriarchal system that required compulsory reproduction and the punitive regulation of those who transgressed the heteronormative order. The battle is at the heart of Joanne Haye’s My Story (1985) which details her experience during the 1984 ‘Kerry Babies’ Tribunal.” Stolen is another chapter in this ongoing and seemingly unending saga for women.
In the past, others who considered themselves ’qualified’ mediated the experiences of the vulnerable and the marginal for the rich, powerful and privileged to understand from the comforts of suburbia. In these two documentaries the protagonists themselves mediate their own direct experiences with the professional help of those technically skilled in media production.
Paddy, having now watched these two documentaries I can only recommend that one should get their hands on a copy of the book from which I quoted Anne Mulhall (above). Women’s story is not simply about going to school innocently through the fields in the past – but more today about excavating many fields that were cemeteries – so that some dignity may finally be restored to the dead, both babies and mothers. I think familiarity with Irish women’s writing is essential reading for understanding these two documentaries.
Mulhall writes too about Nan Joyce’s Traveller: An Autobiography (1985) which “was produced in collaboration with Anna Farmar, who transcribed and edited Joyce’s taped oral narrative.” I was thinking of Joyce’s Traveller too as I watched Minceir. Mulhall says, the second edition, published in 2000, includes Joyce’s ‘Afterword’, where she describes an ongoing situation of routine violence being perpetrated against this minority. Have things changed, for the good of Travellers in Ireland in the past quarter century?
In his Minorities (Ch. 26.4. of The Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland, 2017) Eugenio F. Biagini seems to stop at the establishment of the Irish Travellers’ Movement in 1990. “By then,” he says, “they had found a champion in the Senator of Trinity College, who was elected president of the Republic in that year – Mary Robinson.” Tuesday night’s documentary helped bring Travellers’ voices (their own and again not mediated through others) and faces to our homes and to understand ‘racism’ from the other side of the door and that has moved from roadsides to canal-banks and only God knows where next.
Paddy, I hope you find my thoughts as best I have been able to express them, at least interesting.
Thanks Soline #8 for posting the link to Pope Francis’ letter of appointment of the current head of the Dicastery for The Doctrine of the Faith. I’m sure others will have noticed too the five references in the letter to his Evangelii Gaudium, his programmatic manifesto issued in 2013, the first year of his pontificate.
When you mention “crying injustice” I was thinking of the words of “deep regret” attributed to Pope John Paul II in 1999 “for the cruel death inflicted on Jan Hus.” Poor John was defrocked and burned at the stake on 6 July 1415, (quoted by Christopher M. Bellitto on p.87 in his The General Councils – A History of the Twenty-One Church Councils from Nicea to Vatican II, Paulist Press, 2002).
Not every cloud of smoke in the sky is white – at least not in Constance.
Yes indeed Peadar# 10, the burning of Hus was a cruel abomination, but as Mechtild of Magdeburg said “Nobody can burn the truth”.