News came last week of another gagging of an Irish priest, this time Father Brian D'Arcy, a much loved and respected priest who has enjoyed a long career as a journalist. As well as a newspaper column, he has been a regular commentator on BBC and Irish radio. Father D'Arcy, 67, a member of the Passionist Order, has questioned mandatory celibacy for priests. He has also been a fierce critic of the church's handling of child abuse scandals in Ireland.
He received a censure from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) last year and has spoken about it for the first time this week. The censure obliges him to pass all his written articles and well as notes for radio broadcasts to a Vatican appointed censor before they can be published or aired.
He is just the most recent focus of the CDF's displeasure. Last year the emminent Marist moral theologian, Father Sean Fagan, was the subject of a CDF investigation and then silenced. To compound the sense of unease, Fr Sean and his order were served with a CDF super-injunction forbidding them even to admit that he was under censure; they were ordered to remain silent about the silencing. Fathers Tony Flannery and Gerard Moloney have also been ordered to stop writing. Such measures are bizarre and more consistent with the behaviour of a paranoid and ultra-secretive multinational gangster operation than with the, body of Christ.
There's a word that's much overused nowadays and blocks the questioning Catholic at every turn - MAGISTERIUM. The magisterium is the teaching authority of the Church and good governance can't exist without it but it has been distorted of late. During the current and previous papacies, it has been used to silence any theologians who don't conform to the thinking of the Roman Curia. It doesn't allow for faithful servants of the Church to question, speculate and consider positions which challenge the status quo. Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have forbidden discussion on issues such as artificial contraception, married priests and women being admitted to the priesthood.
The teaching authority of the Church is exercised in different ways. The pronouncement of a pope supported by all the bishops is an exercise of the extraordinary magisterium and is considered infallible. The teaching of a pope or a bishop is considered the exercise of the ordinary magisterium and is authoritative but not infallible. In practice, nowadays, the ordinary is treated as if it were the extraordinary magisterium by Rome and conservative elements within the Church. As well as teaching, the other purpose of the Magisterium is to act as a safety net which allows thinkers within the Church to fly high and take risks with their thinking without harming themselves or the Church by erroneous thought. It should encourage thinking rather than stifling it.
The notion of faithful questioning is unknown to the Vatican which views all differing opinion as disloyal dissent and rebellion. Brian D'Arcy and Sean Fagan are no rebesl. They are gentle men with a sharp minds and a generous spirits who would always give the benefit of any doubt. They and their Irish confreres join the ranks of respected and respectful men and women who have been deprived of the right to think out loud.
While PapaRatzi seems willing to bend over backwards to bring the traditionalist SSPX on board, he demonstrates little compunction in pushing liberal thinkers and Church members overboard.
He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
Edwin Markham
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