Irish Priest Muzzled By Vatican For 'Liberal' Views

Fr Tony Flannery, a prominent Irish priest who founded the Association of Catholic Priests, has been censored by Rome, and is being effectively muzzed over his views on contraception and the ordination of women priests.

Fr Flannery has written a monthly column for the past 14 years in the magazine "Reality" published by his order the Redemporists.

But it's emerged that two months ago, the Vatican directed that his work can no longer be published.

The magazine's editor - Fr Gerard Moloney - has also been told he can no longer write about certain issues.

Both of the men are known for their 'liberal' views on the ordination of women priests, celibacy and the ban on artificial contraception.

Fr Flannery also publicly backed Taoiseach Enda Kenny's stinging criticisms of the Vatican in the wake of the publication of the Cloyne Report on the handling of clerical child sex abuse.

According to reports, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith first contacted the Redemptorist Order in Rome with an order that Fr Flannery no longer be allowed to write in the Irish order's Reality magazine or on its website.

He was also forbidden to do any media work. The dictat was then passed on to the Irish order.

Fr Flannery is still allowed to say Mass.

The silencing of Fr Flannery is being viewed by many in Ireland as a re-entrenchment into traditional Catholic teaching as part of the fight back in the wake the church's declining influences after decades of scandal.

It is also being seen in the context of a stinging homily delivered on Holy Thursday by Pope Benedict XVI, when he criticised a group of Austrian priests who have challenged the church's teaching on celibacy and women priests.

Pope Benedict said he would not tolerate priests who deviate from traditional church teachings.

He said the dissidents claimed to be motivated by concern for the Church, but in reality they were just making "a desperate push to do something to change the Church in accordance with [their] own preferences and ideas".

"We would like to believe that the authors of this summons are motivated by concern for the Church, that they are convinced that the slow pace of institutions has to be overcome by drastic measures, in order to open up new paths and to bring the Church up to date," he said.

"But is disobedience really a way to do this?"

There has been a strong reaction to the Vatican's moves against Fr Flannery from both lay organisations and clergy in Ireland.

One priest from the Redemptorist order said he was "hugely disappointed, dismayed, flabbergasted shocked and amazed" by the Vatican's orders.

Another said he thought it was some "gauche April Fool's Day joke" when he heard it.

The Association of Catholic Priests, which represents more than 800 ordinary priests around Ireland who believe their voices are not being listened to by the hierarchy, said

"We believe that such an approach, in its individual focus on Fr Flannery and inevitably by implication on the members of the association, is an extremely ill-advised intervention in the present pastoral context in Ireland," the group said in a statement.

"We wish to make clear our profound view that this intervention is unfair, unwarranted and unwise."

The group rejected claims that they were a small group of radical priests with an agenda, and warned that moves like this one by the Vatican could do more damage than good to the church in Ireland.

"Accordingly, we wish to register our extreme unease and disquiet at the present development, not least the secrecy surrounding such interventions and the questions about due process and freedom of conscience that such interventions surface," the group said.

"At this critical juncture in our history, the ACP believes that this form of intervention -- what Archbishop Diarmuid Martin recently called 'heresy-hunting' - is of no service to the Irish Catholic Church and may have the unintended effect of exacerbating a growing perception of a significant 'disconnect' between the Irish Church and Rome."