Tony Flannery: What direction is Pope Leo leading the Church?
In the almost fifteen years now since I was suspended from ministry as a priest, I have regularly complained about the lack of due process in the dealings with my case, and also the fact that there was no appeals process. Now I discover that I was wrong. There is an appeals body in the Curia. It is known as the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and it is an established body within the Vatican, and one of its functions is to deal with cases of the removal of a priest’s ministerial faculties.
For starters, it is a fairly intimidating name for somebody like myself, a fairly lowly member of the Church officialdom, an ordinary priest. Over the past fifteen years numerous people, including some high ranking ones, have written to various bodies in the Vatican about my situation, including the Pope himself, and as far as I am aware not one of them even got a reply. So how could one get to this august ‘Supreme Tribunal? If my case was ever considered by them during those years I was not informed. I presume it never got near their table.
Maybe that had to do with the fact that I am a Redemptorist, a religious order, and that it would have needed the headquarters of the Redemptorists to bring my case to them. But my experience of the head office of the ‘Reds’ was that, like the Kerry team last Sunday, they showed a distinct lack of energy in doing anything, except to leave the sanction that they themselves had decreed on me, in place.
Anyway, I read with interest a recent report in the National Catholic Reporter that Leo had appointed some new members to this body. Three of the new members surprised me. The first one is San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. This gentleman has been one of the most outspoken conservatives in the American Church, railing against, among other issues, any change in same-sex marriage laws, and also demanding more access to the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass. In other words, he was a significant opponent of the previous pope. Two more of Leo’s appointments are equally surprising, two Spanish canon lawyers who are members of Opus Dei.
In recent years a lot has emerged about that particular body, Opus Dei, that one would have thought, those appointments are strange, to say the least.
This ultimately does not concern me personally in the least, and I will not be expecting a phone call from Cordileone anytime soon. But it does make me wonder what exactly Leo is up to, and how he is going to steer the Church during his time as pope. ‘Unity’ seems to be a major concern for him. He does not seem to want to do anything that might cause a split in the Church, so he is leaning backwards to reach out to the traditionalists. The first signs of this was, shortly after his appointment, one of the first people he met was Cardinal Raymond Burke, not only meeting him, but inviting him to celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s.
That is all well and good, but in my view, it augurs badly for the Synodality movement. That movement, initiated by Francis, is radical, in the sense that it would involve a major change in the way the Church is governed, giving far greater say to all the baptised, and as a consequence, lessening the power of the clerical church. Traditionalists, especially those who have problems with the teachings of Vatican II, are totally against the movement. As long as Leo emphasis unity above all else, which he seems to, synodality will not succeed. The traditionalist will block it as every turn. The only possible way it could be successful would be to give freedom to the different areas in the world church to move at their own pace. For instance, let the German Church bless same-sex marriages, or the Belgians and South Americans ordain married men to the priesthood. If others don’t want to do it, that is fine too. Why do we all have to be exactly the same?
It won’t work. Splits and divisions express themselves in different ways. Not every group of believers react like the Pius XII movement. Most just move quietly away, not wishing to belong anymore. We see that everywhere.
So I’d say to Pope Leo: Of course meet up with the traditionalists, even give them jobs in the Vatican. But what will you do for all the women who no longer feel at home in a Church where they believe they are second class citizens?
Like Fr. Tony Flannery, my heart sank when l learned about these appointments… a slap on the wrist to Pope Francis. Very worrying development. It would make one wonder where Leo’s heart is and in what direction he really intends to go. These appointments seem to indicate a definite turn towards the clericalism and lace denounced by Francis. It is increasingly painful to remain in a church that continues to hide Christ under a pile of conservative, fearful, male, elitist, self-righteous pomp.
Charles Collins, now editor at CRUX NOW, notes also the lack of transparency and follow-through in the case of former Jesuit and church artist Marko Rupnik, accused by a number of female religious who served with him of serious psychological, spiritual and sexual abuse. A murky judicial process drags on for years – in the dark – with no one knowing who the judges are or whether it will ever conclude.
https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2026/07/so-far-2026-has-shown-the-vatican-still-hasnt-learned-how-to-face-abuse-allegations
Meanwhile synodality is endlessly extolled by Cardinal Mario Grech – even though the transparency it stipulates for success is totally lacking at the summit of the church – to bring, for example, the ‘reckoning’ on clerical sex abuse called for by the Irish national synodal synthesis of 2022, subsequently backed by the Irish Bishops Conference.
That reckoning must surely include a frank acknowledgement of the sin behind many decades of cover-up – none other than the sin of pride – virtually edited out of magisterial commentary upon sin – as evidenced especially in the Catholic Catechism for Youth of 2011 (‘YouCat’).
That was coincidentally the year in which the magisterium under Pope Benedict XVI went looking for scapegoats in Ireland – in the most hypocritical ‘visitation’ this island has ever experienced – the event that resulted in the sanctioning of Fr Tony Flannery, Fr Sean Fagan, Fr Owen O’Sullivan, Fr Brian D’Arcy and Fr Gerry Moloney the following year (2012).
Promised an investigation of the phenomena detailed by the Ryan and Murphy reports of 2009, we never even got a diagnosis and indictment of Irish Catholic clericalism – a prideful phenomenon that was strikingly non-evident in the demeanour and behaviour of those same five priests.
(Lightbulb Moment, so please italicise the following question!) Was that why they were singled out – because they had ‘let the side down’?
Given that four decades have passed since the first revelations of the phenomenon of Catholic clerical sexual abuse of children – in Louisiana in 1985 – it is in vain that churchmen extol the benefits of ‘listening’ while turning a totally deaf ear to calls for basic transparency on the cover-up and when and why it began. They are simply reinforcing the growing perceptions of all institutions as necessarily corrupt out of fear of exposure.
Was it ever to institutional self-preservation that Jesus called anyone? Inadvertently the Vatican magisterium is reinforcing the primacy of Christian conscience by proving, day-by-day, that it doesn’t truly have one. It is a consortium of self-preservationists forever trapped in the quicksand of procrastination and denial – i.e. pride.
IT APPEARS THERE IS LITTLE OR NO RESPECT FOR THE DOING OF JUSTICE IN RC CHURCH. PROCLAMATION OF TRUTH IS unwelcome ; & is OFTEN REDUCED TO LEGALISM / by DICTATORIAL ABUSE OF PERSONS,abuse of authority !!
Good, timely, by Fr Tony, I agree Leo wants to maintain unity and in doing so he won’t rock any boats, his appointment of Opus Dei and a hard-line archbishop does not augur well. Tony’s point about letting various regions move at their own pace is novel and good, we will never have total agreement.
Well said Tony. I think that Leo wants to stay with the old way of being Church – but the 21st century is no way like the 20th, so he had better catch up!!
I have followed the fortunes of the Rev Tony Flannery since his actions first caused problems. I think he is a priest of integrity with a prophetic mission. His observations make sense – questions should be asked of folk when they leave especially priests! There is an unhealthy clericalism in the Church. There is resistance to the valid developments of the Second Vatican Council. “Dissenting” priests are very badly treated, laymen are often second class citizens and women are often treated as third class citizens. “The Church” is the entire People of God, and it is high time that the Curia / Rome / authority, hierarchy and bureaucracy, recognised this and ceased to be an exclusive power base. The Church desperately needs reform and desperately needs more priests and people such as Tony Flannery .
Fr Flannery and his supporters should look up lifeline news and see the path Pope Leo is leading us. Check William A Thomas, A Catholic Revival versus a Synodal Church.
If Pope Leo is against anything that might damage the unity of the church check out his handling of the the SSPX. Fr Tony Flannery is sadly mistaken.