Tony Flannery

International Church Reform Network

The fourth conference of the International Church Reform Network (ICRN) will take place in Bratislava from June 11th to 15th next. It is a participative conference, which will be attended by fifty people, women and men, from Church Reform movements in all the continents of the world. This network is in existence for seven years. The first conference was in Austria, which was mainly attended by representatives of priests reform movements.

Will next Friday’s vote bring the debate about abortion to an end in this country? Absolutely not.
Let me make a few predictions:

If the NO vote wins………..
The committed YES campaigners will not give up. We will be bombarded with ‘hard stories’ and lurid descriptions of the ‘sad journey to England’.
Despite the fact that the Taoiseach would probably respond by saying that the people had spoken, and that was it (and, I suspect, breathe a sigh of relief at getting that off the agenda) the campaign to have a re-run of the referendum would begin.

Reflection following the AGM of the Association of Catholic Priests, 2013

The ACP is three years in existence. It is a miracle that it came to be and a further miracle that it has achieved such significance. Destiny was crying out for its emergence. The wheat grew on barren ground from a wizened seed. The great seed sown by Vatican ll was trampled upon with the heavy boot of those who abhorred a fresh growth.