Church has right to regulate own affairs

Your editorial (Apr 7) was an ill-informed, exaggerated and unjustified attack on the right of the Magesterium of the Catholic Church to regulate its own affairs.

If an official of a Government department, or an employee of a commercial operation made statements and recommended action at variance with the policies of either, they would be silenced or dismissed in short order. Yet your anonymous editorial writer demands that matters should be different in the Catholic Church.

He also dishonestly alleges that “dissent in the Church ... elicits a mailed fist reaction from the Vatican.”

In the 1960s certain theologians in Maynooth objected to the teaching of Humane Vitae, yet they continued spreading their error until they retired. It was also worse than ridiculous to suggest that Fr Flannery is being subjected to a Spanish Inquisition-style treatment for raising questions about priestly celibacy and priestesses.

It is obvious that your writer knows little of the tradition of the Catholic Church and even less about the Spanish Inquisition.

It is extraordinary that Fr Flannery et al are recommending a course already pursued by the Anglican Communion with disastrous results, but it is not surprising to find the enemies of the Catholic Church in support.

Thomas J Waldron

Wilton Road

Cork