Bishop Crean had every right to stop Flannery

No-one should be surprised hearing Fr Tony Flannery complain about being censored.

The latest instance follows Bishop William Crean’s appropriately denying him an opportunity to lecture to a pastoral council because of his being “out of ministry”.

Being “censored”, whether by an agency of the Vatican, by his own order, and now by Bishop Crean, has probably done more than anything else to make him as celebrated a priest as there is in Ireland and more likely to be given a platform, whether in newspapers or in lecture halls, here and abroad, than advocates of an orthodox Catholic position.