Tributes for Fr Sean Fagan came last week after news of the Marist priest’s death.
Fr Fagan died in St Vincent’s Hospital after a long illness.
Former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese says she is “saddened by the death of that great questioning mind that was Fr Sean Fagan’s”.
“A brilliant theologian and thinker who brought great distinction to Ireland, his long and illustrious priestly career was blighted in latter years by being silenced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” Mrs McAleese said.
“His heart and spirit were broken but his fidelity to the Church and quiet acceptance of such an unjust fate won him even more admirers,” she said.
Through his writing, he helped me greatly to free myself from the inherited obsession with sin, and the fear of hell.
In April, 2014, Pope Francis had all sanctions against the very ill Fr Fagan lifted.
It later emerged that in December 2013, Mrs McAleese had written directly to Pope Francis asking that he personally intervene in the case.
Mrs McAleese said the lifting of sanctions against Fr Fagan came too little, too late.
The Association of Catholic Priests also paid tribute to Fr Fagan.
In an editorial, the writer said he owed Sean a “great debt of gratitude”.
“…he, through his writing, helped me greatly to free myself from the inherited obsession with sin, and the fear of hell.
“I suspect that I am not the only one of my generation that is indebted to Sean for that.”
The writer said that from a personal standpoint Fr Fagan was one of the most significant theologians of our time.
“At least he lived to see Francis in the Vatican”, he wrote.
“I hope he found assurance in the way Francis presents God to us as a loving parent, full of mercy and forgiveness. That was how Sean portrayed God.”
Sources