John Smeaton's Blog - 10.9.2010
http://www.spuc-director.blogspot.com/
According to a report in this weekend's Catholic Herald, Fr Dermot Fenlon, one of the Birmingham Three, has been sentenced to five years' exile from the Birmingham Oratory. Here are some key quotes from the report:
•"[Fr Fenlon] has been effectively expelled from his community."
•"Sources close to the Oratory have told The Catholic Herald that Fr Fenlon, 68, is now in the process of being "forcibly exclaustrated" for at least five years, when he will be 74, because he is objecting to the way he is being treated."
•"Yet no figure has publicly given any reason why Fr Fenlon has been subject to such severe canonical penalties in the first place."
•"[A]uthorities then offered to treat the [Birmingham T]hree leniently as long as they accept a period of exile, agree to statements distancing themselves from criticism of the way they have been treated and drop any appeals they had lodged against [Fr Felix Selden's] visitation [of the Birmingham Oratory]."
•"The move to censure him may shock worshippers in Birmingham who know Fr Fenlon for his piety and his loyalty to the teachings of the Church."
In the light of this report, I therefore have a number of questions to put to Jack Valero, spokesman for the Birmingham Oratory, who has also been appointed by the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales as spokesman for the beatification of the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman:
•Why has Fr Fenlon been exclaustrated if, as you wrote in The Catholic Herald of 27 August, he is a "priest in good standing"?
•Why did you say, first that Fr Fenlon and the other Two were "entirely guiltless of any wrongdoing whatsoever", and then later declare them guilty of "pride, anger, disobedience, disunity, nastiness, dissension, the breakdown of charity"?
•Why did you say in June that the Three "can come back soon and continue as normal" when the Three have now been sent away from the Oratory for periods ranging from at least one to up to five years?
•Were the sending of Br Lewis Berry to the South African Oratory and of Fr Philip Cleevely to doctoral studies abroad concessions offered by the "authorities ... as long as they accept a period of exile, agree to statements distancing themselves from criticism of the way they have been treated and drop any appeals they had lodged against [Fr Felix Selden's] visitation [of the Birmingham Oratory]"?
•Why did you claim in The Catholic Herald of 27 August that "the disagreements which concerned the Visitor were not about Church teaching", whereas you are quoted in this weekend's Catholic Herald as saying that the removal of the Three from the Oratory was partly as a result of "doctrinal tensions"?
•Do you accept the Three's stance on government-led sex and relationships education was different from your employer's, the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales?
•Why have the posts on the Oratory website (12 March, 20 March) which so powerfully challenged episcopal policies on abortion and sex education stopped since the removal of the Three?
