Group demands Church lift ban on Irish priests

A representative of Catholic lay group We Are Church Ireland (WACI) is due to hand in a letter of protest today to the Vatican’s watchdog on doctrinal orthodoxy demanding it lift its censure of five Irish priests.

WACI spokesman Brendan Butler is requesting that the silencing imposed on five Irish priests be lifted. They had been described as “a source of scandal to the Irish Christian faithful”.

He said that under Canon law the Christian faithful had “the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church”.