No Magic Wand for Tony Flannery
Having met Tony Flannery, the Irish Redemptorist priest, in 2014 when he toured the United States, I mourn for his current situation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has asked him to assent to four statements, and he has declined. NCR and other outlets broke the news on September 15, and later Joshua McElwee asked a crucial question at a September 22 press conference, as generously reported by Gerald O’Connell in America.
I think there’s more danger to the CDF than to Tony Flannery, who emailed O’Connell: “I believe I can do more for the church by exposing in every way I can the unjust process, rather than trying to get Francis to wave a wand and return me to the ministry.”
Robert Mickens, in LaCroix International, spells it out even more clearly by comparing Flannery to German Jesuit Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, who is president of the European Union Bishops’ Commission. Mickens lists several other German churchmen who’ve raised the women question, and I’ll remind you of the inclusion of women deacons in the report of the Amazon synod. The CDF could not take out everybody who is talking about women and ordination!
Mickens is succinct about the other issues the CDF wants Flannery to assent to: “that ‘homosexual practices are contrary to the natural law’; that unions other than marriage between a man and a woman ‘do not correspond to God’s plan for marriage and family’; and that ‘gender theory is not accepted by Catholic teaching.’”
Reporters characterize his response to the latter as “astounded” and “confused.” He tells The Irish Times, “I don’t know enough about Gender Theory to have any strong views on it, and I don’t know where that one came from.” NCR quotes him: “I’m a bit thrown by the brazenness of what [Ladaria] says. It really has so little relation to reality.”
The Tablet’s Ruth Gledhill reports that “the former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese,…warned on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour that people are leaving the Catholic Church ‘in droves’, tired of ‘little old men’ who continue to ‘beat the drum of obedience’.”
Nothing could better describe the CDF’s treatment of Flannery. Basically, the leaders of the Redemptorists thought that it might be time, under Francis, to get the CDF to remove a prior silencing order and let Flannery to resume preaching and retreats, which is what this order does. That was in February. In July, the CDF sent them the list of teachings Flannery has to assent to in order to gradually resume a public role in which he does not speak on any of those topics. O’Connell in America provides the most complete summary of what happened, as well as the reflection of some in the Vatican deep state about the continuation of such practices in the CDF.
What has Flannery been doing since July? Writing another book, of course. In 2014, I reviewed A Question of Conscience. He details his 2012-2013 treatment by the CDF, as well as his history and beliefs. The new book is From the Outside: Rethinking Church Doctrine, and will be available in October in England and Ireland and in French and Spanish. So much for a search. Clearly, the title indicates that he’s not obeying the CDF order. If this book is similar to his first, he will not leave untouched the utter failure of the CDF to dialogue with him. All communication is through the chain of command.
Flannery tells O’Connell, “I believe deeply in the faith and in the church community. I have a good relationship with my confreres, and I know the Reds [Redemptorists] will not want to expel me.” That’s the obvious concern to anyone familiar with the story of no-longer Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois.
Seventeen Catholic organizations have come forward with the public support that may be needed. Their statement is explicitly in solidarity and says: “Flannery’s advocacy represents beliefs that many Catholics share and long to hear more priests speak out loud. This attempt at suppression by the CDF is a stark reminder of the institution’s resistance to any sort of meaningful dialogue towards solutions to the many crises the Church faces today.”
Including Francis. He has not changed the culture of the CDF. There are rumors of a big reorganization at the Vatican, and of tremendous resistance. The people are waiting. Good priests and others are suffering from arbitrary actions. The grasp of brazen little old men who beat the drum for obedience must be released. Flannery may not hope for a magic wand, but I do.
3 Responses
God bless Tony Flannery and others who put their institutional lives on the line, and you for bringing their courageous resistance to our attention. No word about the publication of his book in the US, eh?
Editorial, The Tablet, 24 September 2020
Time to remove the gagging order
Has the time come to set aside the ruling in Ordinatio sacerdotalis, issued by Pope John Paul II in 1994, thereby opening up a debate about the ordination of women priests that he intended expressly to forbid?
John Paul declared: “The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women,” and went on to order that “this judgement is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful”. It is not disloyalty to that ruling to ask: what did it mean exactly? The Church expresses its authority over ordination, and all the other six Sacraments, through its canon law. For instance, Canon 1031 states: “The presbyterate is not to be conferred except on those who have completed the twenty-fifth year of age and possess sufficient maturity …” That could obviously be amended to change the qualifying age, say, to 27 or 24. Canon 1024 asserts: “A baptised male alone receives sacred ordination validly.” John Paul II appeared to be saying that it was impossible for the Church ever to amend that canon, for instance by inserting “and women” in place of “alone”. But what if a subsequent pope did so, at the stroke of a pen? Can one pope bind another in this way? For ever?
These are reasonable questions. It is safe to say that Pope John Paul II was appealing to something even more fundamental than canon law, a higher law. The reason he gave, about Jesus calling only men as his Apostles, is a reference to the powers that were bestowed on the Church at its beginning. But it is standard Catholic doctrine that those powers also gave the Church authority to evolve and adapt. The very notion of ordination is a later development, as is its separation into three orders, of deacon, priest and bishop.
It is the Church itself which controls this evolution and this development. So while the Church may indeed have no authority “whatsoever” to confer priestly ordination on women at present, as canon law stands, could it not at some point in the future authorise itself to do so by changing canon law? Does this not precisely describe, for instance, what the Church of England did in 1992?
There are also questions about conscience, truth and human freedom. What exactly is forbidden by Ordinatio sacerdotalis? Clearly individuals who think that the ordination of women would be a good idea cannot be made to stop thinking that. Equally clearly, nor can those who think that the argument from precedent – that the Church has never ordained women and therefore cannot do so in future – is not persuasive enough to be the final word. The ecclesiastical powers that be have tended to assume that John Paul II’s intention was to stop them saying so out loud, whatever they privately thought.
They have interpreted it as, in effect, a gagging order. Are they right to do so, and on what authority? Is it compatible with the Gospel to suppress, and impose sanctions upon, individual Catholics who express what their conscience honestly tells them? Is that faithful to the Founder’s intentions? “Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” he said, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/editors-desk/1/18741/time-to-remove-the-gagging-order
Tony was a guest in our home when he spoke here in St. Louis. What a courageous man! I organized a meeting in our home for a few priests who I knew would like hearing him but wouldn’t have come to a public talk he was giving. Anxious to be able to read his latest book. Glad he’s still fighting the good fight but, sounds like, he’s living his life and not letting it get to him. Bravo