Fr Iggy O’Donovan attacks ‘extreme elements’ in Church

An outspoken priest has hit out at intolerant and extreme right-wingers in the Church and questioned why priests like Fr Tony Flannery were being “persecuted with a zeal that is as pathological as the paranoia that feeds it”.

Fr Iggy O’Donovan was paying tribute to Fr Flannery, a Redemptorist priest who was silenced by the Catholic hierarchy in Rome last year after airing his views over women priests, contraception, and clerical celibacy, at his own final Mass before he begins a “sabbatical”.

Close to 1,500 people, including members of the Muslim and Baha’i faiths, attended the service at the Augustinian Church in Drogheda yesterday where they also heard town mayor Richie Culhane claim that “ultra-conservative” elements had forced the Augustinians to “push” Fr Iggy out of Drogheda.