Eva Short enters the murky world of papal espionage. Despite the Church’s waning power in public life, the Vatican’s power over within its own ranks is as strong as ever.
I’ve never been a regular churchgoer – in fact whenever I attend Mass, it tends to be solely because I have to be there. When at the age of eighteen, I found myself in the Augustinian Church in Drogheda it was no exception. On this occasion, I was there to sing with my school’s choir. I looked out from between the ponytailed heads of two blonde girls standing in front of me and watched Fr Iggy O’Donovan, the church’s prior at the time, approach the pulpit.
I didn’t pay much heed because, truthfully, I didn’t intend to pay much attention to what he said. I began to disengage, glancing down at the crumpled sheet music in my hands in one last attempt to familiarise myself with the lyrics. However my head snapped up when I heard Iggy mention the 1930 film “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The man had my attention.
He proceeded to refer to the iconic final scene of the film in which the protagonist, Paul, reaches out a hand to touch the frail wings of a butterfly that has settled on the edge of the barracks. In doing so, he exposes himself to the enemy lines and is quickly shot dead. I don’t remember why Iggy mentioned this, or how he related it to the general point of his sermon that day, but it’s not important. What’s important is that I was suddenly struck by the sense of having stumbled upon something rare – a priest that was also a thinker.
Between songs, I listened to him. His oration was powerful – charming and knowledgeable, Iggy caught the imagination of every enthralled member of the congregation. While I’d always had a keen interest in theology, I’d dismissed the Catholic Church as a body that would never really engage with theological issues, or even philosophy, but that day I was proved wrong.
Leaving the church after the Mass had ended, I resolved that I’d have to return to the Augustinian to hear O’Donovan speak again. Had I known that within eighteen months, he would fall foul of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) and, as a result, be removed from Drogheda and transferred to Limerick, I probably would have made attending more of a priority.
Why, though? Why would a man that could breathe new life into the old Catholic tradition and pack the pews to capacity be reprimanded like this? I made it my business to find out. My investigation led me to the conclusion that, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, the only priest that is of value is the subservient priest, the priest who will take every order from this higher body without question, without thought. They see dissent in the ranks and they stamp it out, and any sense of natural justice or democracy is not their concern.
I had heard the term “papal espionage” before but had never taken it seriously. That is, until Tony Flannery told me that he knew personally of both laypeople and priests that are “waiting to report back” to relevant authorities. When I asked him specifically about O’Donovan’s case, he said he didn’t know, but that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if this was what was happening. I put the same question to Justine and she surmised that it was a case of “serendipity”. It seems Charles Byrne didn’t go to the baptism knowing what he would find, but he saw an opportunity to pull the rug out from beneath O’Donovan’s feet and he took it.
Their reason behind the punishment is because during the baptism of a child, O’Donovan allowed the godparents to pour the water over the child’s head. Somehow, the CDF caught wind of this, deemed it doctrinally incorrect, and swiftly dealt with him. It seemed like a move disproportionate to the alleged crime. This was supported by the whispers that I heard of there being more to the situation than appeared on the surface, a more sinister motivation purposefully veiled. Searching for clarity led me to a man that Iggy O’Donovan mentioned by name in his final homily, Redemptorist priest Fr Tony Flannery.
Tony is a well-known figure in the media because he has been very open about his own troubles with the CDF that resulted in him being taken out of ministry, even writing a book on it, A Question of Conscience. An abridged version of the events reads thusly. In January 2012, Tony Flannery received a phone call telling him that he was being summoned to Rome by his superiors, but not telling him why. Tony insisted they explain the reason, but the person at the other end of the receiver refused, only saying ominously that Tony was in deep trouble.
He was told not to tell anyone of this call to Rome, a request which Flannery ignored, understandably wanting to confide in his family and close friends about the matter. Days later, he arrived in the Vatican with his brother Frank, plagued with anxiety. Two typed-up A4 pages, with neither heading nor signature, were put in front of him – one containing extracts of his writings in a Redemptorist publication, Reality, and the other addressed to his superiors with a list of requests as to how he would be “dealt with”. He would cease writing for the magazine. He would go on a period of “theological reflection”, which they requested be away from his home, and contemplate; only to return when he’d decided to “re-embrace the full teaching of the Church”.
At a later point, an edict was presented to Flannery that he was asked to sign, asking him to recant statements he’d made about the ordination of women and to state that he agreed with all the Church’s sexual teachings and its attitude to homosexuals. Flannery refused – it would have gone against everything he believed in. For that, he was barred from doing what he’d been called to do at the age of seventeen, that is to say Mass. The short story is that Flannery didn’t agree with the Church, and so they expelled him. However, in reality, it’s far from that straightforward, as I learned when I spoke to him.
Flannery has been expressing views that differ to those of the Church for the past twenty five years. It didn’t make sense then, that suddenly they’d decide to take him up on them after so much time. Why go after him now? As Flannery explained it, there was an ulterior motive to this move. The CDF weren’t unhappy with his views – they were unhappy with his role in the founding of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP). The ACP is an independent body of priests that was founded in 2010 by Flannery and seven other priests. Iggy O’Donovan was among the inaugural members, and at the time there was only one other body in all of Europe like it. The organisation exists to give priests a forum to discuss theological issues as well as an independent body to fight for the rights of priests and defend them in situations where their bishops have refused to offer them any support.
Complete with their own secular legal team, the ACP sound like something familiar – a union. And this, as Flannery explained, is exactly what the Congregation don’t like – the key word being ‘independent’, a word that leaves a sour taste in the CDF’s mouths. In the secular world, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 1913 lockout, while in the Vatican they are trying to eradicate anything resembling unionisation. At the time of Flannery’s visit to Rome, the ACP had over 1000 members, and ten other organisations like it had sprung up.
Their reason behind the punishment is because during the baptism of a child, O’Donovan allowed the godparents to pour the water over the child’s head. Somehow, the CDF caught wind of this, deemed it doctrinally incorrect, and swiftly dealt with him. It seemed like a move disproportionate to the alleged crime. This was supported by the whispers that I heard of there being more to the situation than appeared on the surface, a more sinister motivation purposefully veiled. Searching for clarity led me to a man that Iggy O’Donovan mentioned by name in his final homily, Redemptorist priest Fr Tony Flannery.
Who, then, are the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith? In brief, they are the modern Inquisition. And though the name has changed since the 16th century, they don’t seem to have updated their modus operandi. Wholly unconcerned with fairness, the CDF thrive on secrecy and on dealing with priests as indirectly as possible. They wielded incredible power during the papacy of John Paul II, and they still do.
I asked Flannery how he felt about Pope Francis’s recent excommunication of Australian priest, Fr Greg Reynolds, and found myself very disturbed by the answer. The CDF commissioned the excommunication two months into Francis’s papacy, “before he [Francis] could get his feet under the table”. Francis may be at the helm, but the CDF can still execute these kinds of actions. In light of this, we must look at the case of Iggy O’Donovan while being acutely aware of the CDF’s predilection for the clandestine. So how exactly did this organisation find out about O’Donovan’s baptism? The answer lies with the complainant; Drogheda resident Charles Byrne. Charles Byrne has an interesting background. In 2002, he served as the national organiser of anti-abortion lobbyist group Youth Defence. Through 2006 to 2008, he co-edited a Catholic right wing publication called The Hibernian. More recently, he found himself at a relative’s baptism which was being performed by Iggy O’Donovan.
For more insight, I contacted The Sunday Times journalist Justine McCarthy, who broke the story of Byrne’s involvement on the 29th September. She interviewed Byrne and he explained how the complaint came to be. He filmed the baptism and, seeing the perceived error, contacted the Papal Nuncio Charles Brown. He also wrote three letters to Cardinal Sean Brady of the Armagh diocese but found his response “slow and unprofessional”. He met with Charles Brown again at a conference after this and, ultimately persisting, sent the video directly to Rome. Byrne maintains that it was “nothing personal” to O’Donovan, and that he merely wanted to make sure the baptism was valid.
I had heard the term “papal espionage” before but had never taken it seriously. That is, until Tony Flannery told me that he knew personally of both laypeople and priests that are “waiting to report back” to relevant authorities. When I asked him specifically about O’Donovan’s case, he said he didn’t know, but that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if this was what was happening. I put the same question to Justine and she surmised that it was a case of “serendipity”. It seems Charles Byrne didn’t go to the baptism knowing what he would find, but he saw an opportunity to pull the rug out from beneath O’Donovan’s feet and he took it.
I had learned a lot by the time I finally spoke to Iggy himself. I was weary from the information I’d taken in about what is supposed to be a religious organisation. It almost seemed as if I knew more about the situation than he did. “I never saw any documentation”, he told me, “and no one ever dealt with me directly, only through my superiors”. He’d never known Charles Byrne before this. From his whole interview there is one thing he said that I think is more important than anything else – “You give your entire life to an institution, and they treat you like a chattel.”
Iggy O’Donovan’s mistake was that he used his aforementioned gift of the gab to call for change. He’d always been outspoken, always imploring the Church to update its teachings so it could remain relevant in a modern and ever changing society, and the CDF didn’t want to hear it. They plugged their ears and blocked out the undeniable truth – that people want priests like Iggy. They want a discussion, not a lecture, to be engaged with, not talked at. My only question now is this; how long can the Church be impervious to change and still survive in today’s world?
