800 "Priests Warn Vatican over Gag Move"/ Justice is Rising Up

Comment:  Interestingly-it use to be 300priests-then 600 now 800  Hummm.  From all my conversations, you cannot tell me the priests of the Roman Catholic Church are 100% sexist, misogynists, and celebates. I know differently....Clerics need  to come clean about their beliefs....

In his Holy Thursday speech, Benedict warned, ".......  that the church will not tolerate priests speaking out against Catholic teaching..." 

This is not Catholic teaching because Catholics , including me, do not believe this....I belive Catholic is inclusive, welcoming to all minorities and majorities. I believe Catholic understands God calls whomsoever God will.   And I believe God would not throw anyone out of the Catholic Church because they want to responsibly raise the children with whom they have been gifted. 

However, I do believe a cleric who wants to maintain their position of power (not gospel authority) over others would make these choices.....The Pope is governing hierarchically, not pastorally-this so called doctrine is simply theirs to maintain their power over the polity.
dd

800 "Priests Warn Vatican over Gag Move"/ Justice is Rising Up

Irish Independent, Monday April 09 2012
http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/priests-warn-vatican-over-gag-move-3074830.html
"An 800-strong group of Irish priests has said it is disturbed over the Vatican's silencing of one of its members for his liberal views.
The Association of Catholic Priests has warned that forcing Father Tony Flannery to stop writing for a Redemptorist magazine will fuel belief of a disconnect between Irish Catholics and Rome.
"We believe that such an approach, in its individual focus on Fr Flannery and inevitably by implication on the members of the association, is an extremely ill-advised intervention in the present pastoral context in Ireland," the group said.
"We wish to make clear our profound view that this intervention is unfair, unwarranted and unwise."
Fr Flannery, a founder of the association, has had his monthly column with the religious publication Reality pulled on orders from Rome. A second priest, Father Gerard Moloney, the magazine's editor, has been ordered to stop writing on certain issues.
Both priests hold liberal views on contraception, celibacy and women priests. At least a dozen priests had already publicly declared support for Fr Flannery and Fr Moloney in messages on the association's website.
In a strongly worded statement, the group said Fr Flannery's writings should not be seen as an attack on or rejection of the fundamental teachings of the church but a reflection on issues surfacing in parishes nationwide. It said they also reject their portrayal in some circles as a "small coterie of radical priests with a radical agenda".
"At this critical juncture in our history, the ACP believes that this form of intervention - what Archbishop Diarmuid Martin recently called 'heresy-hunting' - is of no service to the Irish Catholic Church and may have the unintended effect of exacerbating a growing perception of a significant 'disconnect' between the Irish Church and Rome," the group said.
Fr Flannery, who has written on religious matters in the Redemptorist magazine for 14 years, is under investigation by the Vatican over his views. As well as expressing opposition to the church's ban on contraception and women priests, Fr Flannery publicly backed Taoiseach Enda Kenny's unprecedented attack on the Catholic hierarchy in the aftermath of the Cloyne Report last year.
In a Holy Thursday homily at St Peter's Basilica in Rome, Pope Benedict warned that the church will not tolerate priests speaking out against Catholic teaching."