However, a piece in the Irish Times about a Drogheda priest caught my eye. Iggy Donovan, or Father Iggy as he is known with quite some affection, seems to have the respect of many in the town, people of faith and none. Occasionally he can be seen going about his business much like everybody else. While out walking the mutts one day with a friend we bumped into him on one of the more scenic routes and briefly exchanged pleasantries. My friend, not a believer either, had a good word for him.
Father Iggy is being moved out of his Drogheda ministry. In the view of the town’s mayor, Richie Culhane, the people behind the push are working to an “ultra-conservative” agenda. There is reason for a concern that should stretch beyond Church members. In his last homily in the Augustinian Chapel Iggy fired a broadside at ‘right-wing Catholics and career-oriented clergy in persecuting Irish priests recently silenced by the Vatican.’
Part of the purpose of the homily was to express solidarity with Tony Flannery of the Association of Catholic Priests(ACP)
I cannot leave here today without making some reference to a distinguished colleague of mine in the priesthood. I speak of Fr Tony Flannery. If I had not been made aware first hand of the details of this case I could not have given it credence ... Even hardened veterans are shaken by the murkiness of the devious world of ecclesiastical politics. How has it come to this, that a great and good priest like Tony, who has dedicated his life to the preaching of the Gospel, is persecuted with a zeal that is as pathological as the paranoia that feeds it?
... how has it come to this, that intolerant and extreme right wingers, encouraged apparently by certain authorities and career-orientated priests, can meet in solemn conclave to determine who is guilty of what these people label heresy?
... how has it come to this that sincere thinking Catholics are walking away from our Church believing that the battle for sane Catholicism is lost?
To insist that Catholicism never seems sane at the best of times would be to miss the point which is that in a scoiety where voices of dissent are being suffocated there is a detrimental knock-on effect in terms of public understanding.
It was reported in June that Iggy's friend and colleague, Tony Flannery, ‘has not been allowed to practise as a priest or to take part in the work of the Association of Catholic Priests.’ It is clear that Flannery was the target of Vatican censorship. The Irish Catholic reported in 2012 that the founder of ACP:
has ceased writing his regularly monthly column in the Redemptorist Reality magazine. The Irish Catholic understands that this is as a direct consequence of the Vatican’s intervention. It is the first time in 14 years that Fr Flannery’s regular column has not appeared.
Whatever the theological aspect of these disputes - I doubt there is any, merely a will to stifle independent thought confronted by a will to reflect and question - it does not interest me. With Tony Flannery censored and Iggy Donovan being exiled to some gulag ecclesiastico in Limerick, there is a glaring need for people outside the Church to back those within it who are standing up to reactionary clerics who wish to pollute society with their toxic influence. Wherever censorship exists it should be confronted by a rising crescendo of the very noise it wishes to have hushed up through an imposed vow of silence.
