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1. As a practising lay Catholic with a Masters in Theology, I have no issue with discussion as to the origin of the traditions, practices and beliefs that form church history.
   What does upset me is when there is an attempt by those in authority to stifle discussion about these very important concepts.
   There is little doubt that practices in the Christian tradition have changed and will continue to change. There is a huge difference between the core beliefs of the Church which we are bound as Catholics to accept, and the traditions and practices which have developed around them over the millennia.
   There is no evidence that the priestly tradition which we have today, originated in the time of Jesus, indeed its development was quite a while after his departure on Ascension Day. Like many aspects of today's Church, it reflected the needs and power plays in the Church over the centuries.
   With the increasing numbers of lay people, such as myself becoming interested in Theology and curious about the development of the traditions and rituals of the Church over the centuries, it is really only a matter of time before some of the sacred cows held as ‘gospel truth’, will be seen for what they were, a reaction to events and needs of the time.
   I feel for Fr Flannery, but unlike him, as a layperson, I can express my opinion without fear of consequences.
   

   Posted By: Gavin

2. The Irish have gifted to Australia all the magnificent qualities for telling it as it is as well as standing up for the underdog.
   I call upon my fellow Australian Catholics to stand in solidarity with this man in his moment of trial and Gospel insurrection.

   Posted By: Michael Furtado

3. Michael Furtado: The Irish Catholic tradition was born of the Roman rite and see, and stood firm and loyal under fierce persecution of 'papists'.
   Nor has it ever countenanced 'Gospel insurrection', which has a strikingly fundamentalist resonance.
   Count me out of your alarum.

   Posted By: John Kelly

4. It was good to read that Fr Flannery's own Irish congregation is standing behind him and supporting him, even though his Superior General in Rome has been unable to do so openly.
   The road of the prophet is a lonely one.
   Thank God we have ordained men who are willing to risk everything to do their duty by the People of God.
   I'm with you, Gavin. As a layperson, I have nothing to fear from the Vatican. All the more reason for me to support Fr Flannery, who has.

   Posted By: Joan Seymour

5. Gavin: Core beliefs and the tradition which conveys them authoritatively in the Catholic Church are inherently connected to each other, not to be dichotomised.
   That Christ himself instituted the priesthood is a central tenet of ecclesiology and sacramentology in in the Catholic tradition, which is not reliant only on written testimony. In fact, it can be argued that, in the earliest Church, written evidence on matters such as priesthood was unnecessary, foundational belief and practice being self-evident.

   Posted By: John

6. The Irish Catholic tradition, which is Celtic, was subjugated by the Roman rite, even though it kept the Faith alive - when Rome disintegrated during the Dark Ages - and remarkably even managed to re-evangelise Europe.
   It is also a matter of energetic historical and theological debate whether Rome itself sided with the Irish, when they were subjected to ferocious and pitiful persecution, but instead made many political compromises with the Anglo-Protestant British establishment.
   A well-known and highly regarded text by John Molony, 'The Roman Mould of the Australian Catholic Church', (MUP, 1969), speaks to these ecclesiological distinctions even within Australia, and there is currently a lively debate within Ireland focussing on the oppressive and negative effects of Vatican interference within the internal affairs of the Irish Catholic Church and state, which is rather the point of Fr Tony Flannery's stand.
   Furthermore, John Kelly appeals to fiction to frame 'Gospel insurrection' within a 'fundamentalist' nomenclature that would be more appropriately recognised by many as uncritically clerical, stressing obedience, absolute docility and quietism, as well as blind and aggressive reaction. Fundamentalists also incline towards anti-intellectualism and scriptural literalism. These are hardly Fr Flannery's or my forte!
   John's flowery gallimaufry is akin to my suggesting that he's either a Scots Calvinist or an Irish Jansenist, though if he's neither, he's welcome to join my protest!
   

   Posted By: Michael Furtado

7. Michael Furtado: The Irish tradition is Celtic and Druidic, to be distinguished from the Irish Catholic tradition.
   Since you reject the fundamentalist connotation of yourt Gospel insurrection terminology, perhaps you'd settle for antinomian?

   Posted By: John

8. Antinomianism is the belief that under the gospel dispensation of grace, moral law is of no use or obligation because faith alone is necessary to salvation.
   I do not believe this, nor indeed does Fr Flannery.
   The issue at hand is categorically not one of disobedience and rejection of a known and especially Christian moral order, through reference to pre-Christian Celtic and Druidic practice.
   Nor has John been able to critically evaluate the hegemonic authority imposed by Rome over the universal Catholic Church, which in this sense makes his blind faith-based position rather more antinomian than mine.
   If he wants to contest this he might better understand my position as Cisalpine, as opposed to his own probable Ultramontane view.
   While these distinctions became recognised in the nineteenth century, they come closest to describing the take-over of the Church by Romanocentric forces, especially during Vatican I (and contested by Acton, Newman, Dollinger, Lammenais, Lacordaire and others) temporarily reversed during Vatican II but reimposed currently and under the last and present papacies.
   Such criticism reveals the Vatican's deep disregard for a Church governed by a more subsidiarist episcopal collegial culture and structure and profoundly inimical to participation by the laity, especially women.

   Posted By: Michael Furtado

9. I fully support the view expressed by Father Flannery.
   His views contribute to the health of a vibrant and developing Church.
   The institutional aspects of the Roman Catholic Church are damaging to the extent that they prevent the Church, the People of God, from engaging with the modern world.
   It is absurd to think that the hierarchy of the Church, today, cannot adequately read the signs of the times in the issue of the ordination of women to the priestly ministry.
   One of the signs of the times is, surely, that women are being called to assume leadership in so many aspects of life because they bring to their role an enriched perspective, a collaborativeness and solidarity that men have found impossible to accomplish.
   The Church needs the headship of women.
   The Holy Spirit is alive and well in all aspects of life.
   Father Flannery is a modern day prophet.

   Posted By: Bernard Edwards

10. Michael Furtado: '... the hegemonic authority imposed by Rome over the universal Catholic Chuch.'
    Tautology aside, this is an unsubstantiated assertion that ignores the traditional primacy of the Roman see and the Bishop of Rome from the Apostoliic era.
    I'm glad to see you dissociate yourself from fundamentalism and antinomianism, and note your inaccurate categorising of my own faith as antinomian and Ultramontane.
    I point out that you yourself introduced what you now dismiss as irrelevant: 'The Irish Catholic tradition, which is Celtic, was subjugated by the Roman rite', perpetuating the romantic myth, (also conducive, of course, to Marxist historical revisionism asserting ecclesial colonising) - a fiction recently refuted by the work of the late Prof Patrick Wormald and others.

    Posted By: John

11. Where, Michael Furtado, does the teaching of Vatican II reverse, as you suggest, that of Vatican I?
    I suggest you read Thomas White OP on the continuity of Vatican II's ecclesiology not only with Vatican I but also with the Council of Trent.

    Posted By: John

12. Historically the Celtic Church, to which I alluded, kept the flame of Christianity alight during the European Dark Ages.
    During that time it developed liturgical modalities and cultural practices, indigenous to the Christian Celtic people of Ireland, (which John seems to demean as pagan and Druidic) including, by reputation, according equal value and leadership to women and men, as evidenced in the remarkable case of St Brigid.
    It also re-evangelised Europe against the darkest of forces that Rome itself was unable to withstand.
    A considerable body of research attests to this extraordinary efflorescence, both in terms of its spirituality as well as its absence of hierarchy.
    Restoration of a Latinesque liturgy, ecclesiology and practice occurred after the appointment by Rome of St Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury. And the administrative modalities employed were unashamedly Romanesque, owing more to the feudal custom and the cultural context of the Catholic Church at that time.
    As to Vaticans I and II, criticising Rome, Lord Acton, himself a Catholic, observed that papal infallibility owed more to cultural context, illiberal antimodernism and anti-democratic reaction than to the Holy Spirit!
    The reunification of Italy, championed by the anti-clerical French Empire, goes a long way towards explaining the siege mentalities of Pius IX and Pius X. There's is not much disagreement amongst most Church historians on this.
    The American sociologist of religion, Thomas O'Dea, argues that Vatican II commenced the reversal of this unfortunate ecclesiological mishap, which may help explain why things have gone awry in recent years.
    

    Posted By: Michael Furtado

13. I'd have thought a mentality of siege quite appropriate when siege was being laid, as it was to the Vatican, with the Pope himself imprisoned.
    This pejoratively employed metaphor, however, does no justice (nor does Acton's observation) to the issue of divinely revealed truth entrusted to the Church, critically affecting understanding of the nature of the Church (not merely a naturalistic construct), its teaching authority (not merely self-conferred) and the freedom of its missionary activity (not merely a political exercise).
    With due respect to Thomas O'Dea, the issue of Vatican II's doctrinal connection with previous Councils and papal teaching and practice since requires and is more comprehensively addressed by an historical, philosophical and theological competence and depth of the kind demonstrated by Fr Thomas White OP, director of the Thomistic Institute, Washington, D.C.
    On the matter of the Celtic/Irish Catholic distinction, I again alert readers to the definitive work of Oxford's Patrick Wormald, which disperses the ‘Celtic twilight’ fantasy - much enamoured of 19 century historians - of a pristinely autonomous Celtic Church subjugated by Rome, and invoked by Michael Furtado as justification for his anachronistic, Cisalpine ‘crie aux barricades’.
    

    Posted By: John

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