Right not to allow Flannery to talk in Catholic setting

Thanks to Margaret Hickey for her well-argued defence of Bishop William Crean’s actions in respect of a misguided invitation to priest, Tony Flannery, to abandon his silence and promote his Protestant ideas on Catholic premises.

For ten years, I was the senior Catholic member of staff in a thousand-strong, joint Catholic and Anglican secondary school in London. One of my major responsibilities was to ensure that Catholic and Protestant staff respected their Catholic and Protestant students’ faith traditions equally.

Tony Flannery has largely abandoned Catholic tradition in respect of core beliefs about the eucharist, the priesthood and Church authority.

The ideas he now promotes make him a fairly mainstream Protestant. It would have been a major dereliction of duty, on my part, if I had employed him to work as a Catholic teacher. I fully understand and respect Bishop Crean’s position as chief teacher in his diocese.

Alan Whelan

Beaufort

Co Kerry