Tony Flannery

The local supermarket is a good place to meet people. Almost every time I go there I find myself having a chat with someone in one of the aisles. Yesterday, as I stood in the queue for the express check-out with my few gluten free items, I heard a voice behind me:
“Have you heard anything from the Vatican recently?”
I looked around to see a woman who occasionally attends our church in the monastery, and with whom I have had many chats over the years.
“No. I haven’t heard anything from the Vatican since October of 2012; and of course that, like all communications from the Vatican, only came to me indirectly”.
She expressed surprise at hearing that, and said that she thought there would be a fair bit of negotiations going on at various levels to try to reach some conclusion to my situation. I answered that experience and my general knowledge of the Church had taught me that this is not the way the Vatican operates. Instead they are quite happy to leave things as they are, knowing that the years are moving on and that I won’t live forever.
As reported elsewhere on this site, one of my colleagues publicly called on the Redemptorist authorities to immediately restore me to full ministry. But they have already informed me that they do not consider they have the authority to do so, despite what Pope Francis said about issues of discipline being decided by the local Church. I am not at all sure if the central authority of the Redemptorists really believe what they told me. Sometimes I think that they may be pleading lack of authority in this matter as an excuse for not doing anything to resolve the situation.
For the moment life is busy and fulfilling for me. I am getting a great many requests to speak on Church reform and on my experiences with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I am both excited and hopeful by what I am reading and hearing from Pope Francis, and I detect a greater sense of energy and enthusiasm in the Church than I have experienced for many years. In my talks I am quoting at length from Evangelii Gaudium, and speaking very positively about the future of the Church. I think it is fair to say that I am doing my bit to promote the message of Pope Francis. In this endeavour, the Redemptorists on the ground are supportive of me and the Redemptorist authorities have not sought to impede me in any way.
But I know very well that this will not last, and that increasingly I will find myself on the fringes of the Church, and faced with difficult and painful decisions. I firmly believe that the way I have been treated by the Church is both unfair and unjust, and that I should be allowed to continue my priestly ministry without any restrictions. I try very hard not to fall into self-pity or bitterness, and my present busy life makes that easier. While I worry about the future and its uncertainty, I have no desire to take on a victim persona. That would be a recipe for a miserable old age. Que sera, sera!!