Friday, February 19, 2010

Catholics who resign lose authority to dictate Church policy - Redemptorist

A prominent Redemptorist has told the former Catholics who have publicly resigned from the Catholic faith through the recently established Count Me Out website that they cannot continue to tell the Church how to conduct its affairs.

Fr Flannery said he had, “no problem with anyone leaving the Church” and hoped they would “find their peace somewhere else.”

But, he said, the public nature of these departures reminded him of a colleague’s comparison of how an English and an Irish person would drop their religious affiliation.

“The English person would slip quietly out the side door, but the Irish person would shout and roar and slam the door.” “We have seen good examples of this in recent times,” Fr Flannery remarked.

“Having made their very public and noisy departure, some ex-Catholics continue to dictate to the Church about how it should run its business.” “I’m afraid they can’t have it both ways,” he said.

Fr Flannery said the Church was made up of a community of believers and the decision, for instance, as to who is or is not bishop of a particular diocese should be made in consultation with the believers.

It should not, he went on, be made “by an exclusive little cabal in the Vatican” and neither should it be made by “those who are no longer a part of the Church and have made it clear that they do not wish to have any part of it, either alive or dead.”
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