Family and Life have a very interesting piece on the schismatic implications of the ACPI and its link to a similar group in Austria. (At the same time it should be borne in mind that many/most ACPI members will not take things to their logical conclusion, because of residual attachment to the Church from various motives):
www.prolife.ie/personal-update-issue-description/why-vatican-had-take-action-acpEXTRACT
Why the Vatican Had to Take Action on ACP
Posted to Personal Update | Issue 117 | 01/05/2012
As we go to press, we read of the “silencing” of Fr Tony Flannery, one of the founders of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), and Fr Seán Fagan, remembered for revising the theology of sin. The ACP is “disturbed” by the Vatican’s moves, but one wonders why? For years this Redemptorist priest has been ventilating his dissent across the country, with the support of his superiors, and something has at last triggered Rome’s action to put a stop to it. What was that something? We’ll come to that later.
The current news of the “silencing” of two leading ACPs is a great opportunity to raise the level of hostility to Rome. With the enthusiastic support of the Irish media, most notably Patsy McGarry in the Irish Times, the Vatican authorities are now likened to the Inquisition or some Communist enforcer of the past. However ridiculous this may seem, the disaffected swallow the propaganda like adolescents. Read the blogs if you like to see collective hysteria and unchecked abusive language.
The ACP quickly swung into its indignation mode, issuing press releases on the Vatican action. Expressing what it describes as “our profound view”, the ACP’s “leadership” condemns the Vatican decision. Natch. It then turns its attention to Fr Flannery’s views: “The issues surfaced by the ACP… are not an attack on or a rejection of the fundamental teachings of the Church.” He is merely mediating the issues troubling the people of Ireland.
Just how fundamental has dissent to be to be fundamental? So, women priests, the end of clerical celibacy and the acceptance of homosexual behaviour are just minor details and not at the heart of the Church’s struggle with the modern world?
Unable to curb its indignation, the ACP then lashes out at “some reactionary fringe groups”, who “portray our association as a small coterie of radical priests… We have vehemently protested against that unfair depiction.” Every revolution needs enemies at home, and such people are written off as mad or bad. Commenting in the Irish Times, Fr Kevin Hegarty lauded the work of the ACP as “honest and honourable”, in contrast to the Vatican’s secret and sinister actions, to say nothing of the doings of those “fringe groups”. Aaaahh!
Fr Flannery’s brother is Frank Flannery, Enda Kenny’s key strategist, and it is hard to believe that the priest didn’t have an input to the Taoiseach’s infamous rant in the Dáil against the Vatican and Pope Benedict. For example, who supplied the quotation of the Pope, so crookedly misused by the Taoiseach? Why did Fr Flannery express his outright support for Enda Kenny so very publicly, not long after accusing the Vatican of “dismantling the progress of the Second Vatican Council and returning to the authoritarianism of the Tridentine Church”?
Perusing the ACP website can raise a few laughs. Brendan Hoban, for example, takes issue with the Apostolic Visitation’s comment about dissenting priests. “I must say I don’t know of any ‘dissident’ priests, religious or laity. I know a lot of them who have reflected on the wisdom accumulated over lifetimes of service of their Church and who have opinions that they feel compelled to express. That’s not the result of dissidence but loyalty.” This is Alice in Wonderland stuff.
Is Schism on the Agenda?
To return to the question of what triggered the Vatican’s move, I suggest that we look at Catholic history in and around Southern Germany and Austria to find a clue. Schism and separatism are nothing new in this area. In 1870, the leading historian of the time, Fr Ignaz von Döllinger, was the most notable of a group of German-speaking Catholics who refused to accept papal infallibility defined in the First Vatican Council. They either formed their own churches or joined the “Old Catholics”, a schismatic group that originated in Holland in the Eighteenth Century.
THERE WAS A SMALLER SCHISM ON SIMILAR GROUNDS IN THE RHINELAND EARLIER IN THE C19
Between 1897 and 1919 an Austrian movement called Los von Rom (Away from Rome) led to some thousands of Catholics leaving the Church and adopting a form of Lutheranism. The movement was bitterly anti-papal and anti-Catholic, animated by national and racial pride and a traditional distrust of countries South of the Alps. Its motto was expressed by one of its leaders: “Without Judea, without Rome, let us build the German cathedral.” It petered out in the Twenties, and many of its members embraced National Socialism.
In the nearby new Republic of Czechoslovakia, carved out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, a movement among Catholic priests, Jednota, (Union of clergy) wanted “a democratised and national Church independent from Rome” and the abolition of the obligation of clerical celibacy, among other items. In 1920, it proclaimed itself the Czechoslovakian Church and elected one of its priests as its “patriarch”.
Pope Benedict XV was unimpressed with Jednota and its made-to-order church, and he excommunicated any Catholic who persisted in this schismatic enterprise. He concluded correctly that no concession would satisfy the nationalistic and liberal demands of its adherents. Today, the descendents of that schism number about one hundred thousand in what is now called the Czech-Hussite Church.
It should come as no surprise that schism is looming again in Austria. In 2006, the Pfarrer Initiative (pastor initiative) was set up by Monsignor Helmut Schüller, up to 1999 the vicar-general of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna. Once again, the “reform” of clerical celibacy tops the laundry list of demands, backed, it is claimed, by some 400 priests and deacons. This is the same group that launched a “Call for Disobedience” around the time that Pope Benedict visited Germany last year. In response, some 300 out of 4,200 Austrian priests agreed to adopt seven measures in their parishes, all of which are contrary to the Church’s teaching and rulings.
And now for the interesting bit. Mgr Schüller visited Ireland in October 2011 as part of an international tour to encourage similar agitprop groups in the Church. Do you think that he visited Cardinal Brady and Archbishop Martin? Are you serious? There’s only one group in Ireland that fitted his bill, and that was the ACP. In fact, the ACP hosted the Schüller delegation at its October 4-5 conference in Dublin, and that meeting may well have been the trigger for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to pay attention and take action.
The Dynamic of Schism
The organised agitation of the Pfarrer Initiative and, to a lesser extent of the ACP, can have only one outcome—schism. They make a lot of noise about “dialogue”, “listening” and their love of the Church, but in reality they are not interested in anything other than their own positions. AS ANYONE WHO HAS FOLLOWED THE ACP'S STATEMENTS ON THE LITURGY WILL KNOW If the Pope and their own bishops refuse to accept the “reforms”—and both sides know that they won’t—the protestors must go it alone. When, not if, they do, they know that the bishops cannot look the other way, as they have been doing for close on five decades.
The Austrian and Irish bishops will be forced to act, however unwillingly, by suspending the priests and excluding them from operating on Church property. The new church will protest that its members are faithful to the Spirit and lay the blame with the Pope and his bishops for thwarting the work of the Second Vatican Council.
They will call their organisation a “national”, “celtic” or “independent” church but from the start it will be in serious schism, if not also in heresy. Once they find an “old Catholic” bishop to give one of their own episcopal powers, they can ordain married persons—men and women—and maybe even have a patriarch. As for doctrine and liturgical unity, it will be unlikely that there will be any rule of faith and worship in a church that lauds the “freedom of the Spirit”. Their unity will only be preserved by allowing a thousand flowers to bloom.
At present, the ACP has one problem. Its members are predominantly limited to a small group of priests, so it must extend the movement of protest and schism to laypeople, which is why Mgr Schüller’s visit was so welcome. We can expect some form of outreach to organise disgruntled lay people into a pressure group for a national church.
THERE ARE ALREADY SUCH GROUPS - E.G. BRENDAN BUTLER'S "WE ARE CHURCH" AND POBAL DE. THEY HAVE BEEN MUCH IN EVIDENCE ON THE LETTERS PAGES IN RECENT WEEKS
Pope Benedict is acutely aware of the damage that a schism can inflict on the Church—just consider the intractable problems with the Lefebvrists. At the same time, he cannot allow the schismatics to direct events. Maybe he should take his cue from his namesake, Pope Benedict XV.
Addendum: One of the grounds on which Fr Tony Flannery and the ACP invoke legitimacy is their claim that they are speaking on behalf of the laity. Ironically, their view of the laity is not so far removed from that of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. They like their laypeople compliant, and seem to have very little interest in the views of laypeople who do not agree with them OR INDEED ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH THEM; THEY LIKE TO SPEAK OF THEMSELVES AS REPRESENTING A "CONSENSUS" WITH THE IMPLICATION THAT THOSE WHO DISAGREE SHOULD BE IGNORED. Indeed, such laypeople are treated with barely concealed contempt. They are, in the words of Fr PJ Madden, one of the leaders of the ACPI, “a rump more Catholic than the Pope”. I fear he did not intend a compliment.
END
There is one problem with this analysis IMHO which is that many such "liberals" will be reluctant to go into formal schism, as they appreciate the authority they (but not, in their view, the Pope and bishops) receive from their official positions, and their greatest fear is that without them an "orthodox" church might retain sufficient vitality to regenerate itself. There would also be significant scope for dispute over church property; a dissident group if sufficiently large might take steps to secure as much church property as it can lay claim to (as the IHM nuns did when they broke away in California), perhaps even seeking state intervention on the pretext that it represents "the people" as against "the institutional church". Schism is always a grievous wound and while it may be inevitable we should not engage in wishful thinking about it.