Fr Tony Flannery A controversial Irish priest who has been in a dispute with the Vatican for several years over his views on priesthood and the Eucharist has rejected a plan from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that would have restored him to public ministry.
Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery has been forbidden to exercise public ministry since 2012 after he was censured for saying that he no longer believed that “the priesthood as we currently have it in the Church originated with Jesus” or that he designated “a special group of his followers as priests”.
Fr Flannery said he believes his priestly ministry has ended.
The priest revealed on his website that he had been asked by the Vatican in July to affirm Church teaching in a number of areas, including the inadmissibility of women for ordination, homosexuality, same-sex relationships and gender theory.
He said he refused.
According to documents published on Fr Flannery’s website, the Vatican congregation responded that he “should not return to public ministry prior to submitting a signed statement regarding his positions on homosexuality, civil unions between persons of the same sex, and the admission of women to the priesthood”.
Fr Flannery said he was “not surprised, but disappointed and saddened” by the Vatican’s response. “In my view, it is a document that, both in tone and content, would be more at home in the 19th Century. I could not possibly sign those propositions,” he said.