Privilege

We now understand how privilege operates. Some people get to do things that others don’t. Many are seeing that in the response of the police to “gatherings” in Washington this year. I’m not going to explore this here; I’m just putting it in your minds. Some people are able to be a lot more free than others, within a system whose operation is supposed to treat each the same.

The world of American politics is a lot more volatile than the church world. Nobody says that change takes centuries in our country; it’s often instant, a reaction that shifts our fragile boat in another direction. The huge barge of the church turns slowly, in contrast.

Tony Flannery has been pointing out one of those slow turns recently, and it’s gotten some attention. You may remember this Irish Redemptorist priest who toured the United States in 2014, sponsored by Catholic Organizations for Renewal. After years of retreat ministry, his articles about women’s ordination in Reality, the ironically titled publication of his order, attracted Vatican attention. He describes the Kafkaesque process of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that silenced him in A Question of Conscience. He has been speaking out ever since.

Privilege comes into it because his statements are noticed. It’s clerical privilege. A woman speaking out, even a nun, would barely get noticed. In contrast, using his prior career as an itinerant preacher, Flannery has created a presence, now through a website and a blog. He uses this presence to speak out for our cause.

Flannery’s latest press statement begins, “In the last while two senior members of the Catholic Church have made statements about the position of women in the Church, and specifically about women’s ordination.” I am so glad he draws attention to these clerics because I neglected them during the Christmas season. The Irish press did not do much editing in reporting on Flannery’s statement (Irish World, Irish Times, Irish Examiner) — even Le Croix International — and all repeated his argument that his censure should be lifted.

The first example is Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing, the current president of the German national conference of Catholic prelates, who told the German magazine Herder Korrespondenz: “There are well-developed arguments in theology in favor of opening up the sacramental ministry to women as well,” according to Religion News Service. The Catholic News Service article in America quotes more from the bishop in the German source: ““I would describe myself as conservative because I love this church and enjoy devoting my life and my strength to it. But I want it to change.”

CNS continues, “He said he often mentioned the ordination of deacons as the first step before the ordination of priests and bishops. He said he saw room to maneuver on the issue, adding that he favored a greater involvement of women and of laypeople in general in the Mass, including giving the homily, which has been prohibited.” I’d take this kind of open statement from the head of the USCCB anytime.

Blatzig also supports blessings for LGBTQ couples, another area that got Flannery in trouble: “We need solutions that are not only effective in private, but also have public visibility — yet make it clear that no marriage is being solemnized.”

Finally, in discussing the German synodal process, Blatzig says “the answer should not be to wait for the last one, and to have no one go ahead and look for answers ‘that are suitable for their cultural context and prevent the gap between the Gospel and the respective culture from becoming ever wider.’ The answers must be allowed to be more decentralized, and must permit leeway, he said,” according to CNS. His view of church is my view of how change will happen.

Flannery’s second example is the Archbishop-elect of Dublin, Dermot Farrell. The US equivalent would be Cardinal Dolan’s heir in New York, something I’d be happy to see sooner rather than later.

Flannery quotes Farrell’s interview in the Irish Times, which leads with “he would like to see women becoming deacons in the church.” The Times reports that he feels “the biggest barrier to having female priests in the Catholic Church is probably tradition, not the Scriptures.” Flannery comments,  “In saying this he appears to undercut the main argument used by the Church against the ordination of women.” Remember the dissention in the Vatican deacon commission? They placed another narrative is in the public mind, even in the Archbishop’s mind. Farrell is not so keen on public ceremonies for LGBTQ couples, by the way, but he dislikes “intrinsically disordered.” He’s open on priestly celibacy.

“Will either of these two senior clerics be asked by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to sign a document?” Flannery asks. That’s what he has to do to “gradually resume his public ministry.” Of course not. Flannery is stranded on the shore of the old thinking in the Vatican, and the barge is turning. I do not begrudge him the privilege of his previous status, because he has been able to create a ministry in his own way.

His own unique way. Here’s a YouTube link to an interview with Flannery on his birthday a few years ago. The Eucharist, he says, gets additional meaning because it “is people walking together for a cause they can believe in.” I am happy to walk with Tony Flannery and thank him for continuing to believe in the cause of women’s ordination.