What happens if a Catholic priest molests children?Usually, he's protected by the Church hierarchy. Maybe he'll eventually have his parish or diocese taken away, or be switched to another one -- often after years of serial abuse.
But there's a good chance he'll stay in the Church.
So what happens if a Catholic priest publicly supports ordaining women?
Well, then he's excommunicated on the double.
"Nearly 5,000 Catholic priests [in the U.S.] have sexually abused over 12,000 Catholic children…but they were not excommunicated," says Father Roy Bourgeois, who faced the latter scenario after helping celebrate what the Vatican considers to be an illegitimate ordination mass in August 2008.
Bourgeois, a Vietnam veteran with a Purple Heart who became a prominent peace activist, stood with the trailblazers of the female ordination movement in Lexington, Ky., to make Janice Sevre-Duszynska a Catholic priest.
For thumbing his nose at one of the most sacred tenets of the conservative hierarchy -- that only men are worthy of the priesthood -- Bourgeois was swiftly rebuked by the Vatican in a letter two months later, telling him he had 30 days to renounce his actions or face excommunication.
After his deadline passed without a definitive word, Bourgeois told Ms. Magazine that his heart wouldn't allow him to cave in to the Vatican.
"Deeper than the hurt, the sadness, there's a peace that comes from knowing I followed my conscience in addressing this great injustice," he said.
Still, Bourgeois wanted to question the Pope: "Who are we as men to say that our call to the priesthood is valid, but yours as women is not?"
Given that 64 percent of American Catholics in a 2005 AP/Ipsos poll agreed that women should be ordained, they might ask the pope the same thing.
But the Vatican, despite parish closings across America and a 30 percent decline in priests between 1965 and 2000, doesn't seem ready for that question.
"The church believes that the intent of Jesus' founding of the priesthood is that it was reserved for men," explained Sister Mary Anne Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
But, speaking for the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests, Bridget Mary Meehan, herself ordained in 2006 and subsequently excommunicated, disputes that teaching. "Jesus never ordained anyone," says Meehan.
"And in the tradition, women were ordained deacons, priests and bishops for the first 1,200 years."
The Vatican's strong response to Bourgeois' action stands in stark contrast to its overwhelming failure to punish molesters.
Even a homicidal priest, Father Gerald Robinson, who was convicted in 2006 of the satanicritualistic murder of a 71-year-old nun in an Ohio chapel (see "The Nun's Story," Summer 2006), has not been excommunicated.
Though Robinson to date has spent more than two and a half years in prison and lost an appeal, he still remains a priest, albeit one quietly retired by his bishop.
Walsh's explanation: As heinous as the crime was, the Church doesn't excommunicate for murder.
The Vatican may soon have further explaining to do, this time in a U.S. courtroom. A federal appeals court ruled in late November that a lawsuit arising in Kentucky over the Vatican's negligence in dealing with sexual abuse could proceed -- the first time a court that high has recognized the Holy See's potential liability in this arena.
One of the key pieces of evidence in the lawsuit?
A 1962 memo, approved by Pope John XXIII, directing Catholic bishops to keep silent about sex-abuse claims.
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Sotto Voce
(Source: AN)
That is VERY strange. The Church does not excommunicate for MURDER as in the case of the Priest who murdered the Nun.
ReplyDeleteThat is in the case of a real living breathing human being.
However they do excommunicate in the cases of an abortion no matter how soon after conception it takes place when it is just some cells and not yet even born to be a living breathing human being.
All of this makes it look like it does not know what it is doing and just makes up the rules as it goes along. Is it any wonder people are questioning their faith and changing to another Church that knows what it is doing and does not discriminate and is more human and caring of its flock.
YOu said that the Vatican doesn't consider women to be worthy of being priests. It is not a matter of worthiness but rhater of changing the outwarde sign in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. In other words, can a woman be validly ordained. Men and women are both human and both capable of being saints but they are different and the Chruch hasn't got the authority to change the outward sign of the Sacrament. To risk introducing invalidity into the Sacraments is more serious even than murdering a nun.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say to the posting above is MY GOD I AM SHOCKED. Murdering a nun (or anyone for that matter) is not as serious as introducing invalidity into the Sacraments.
ReplyDeleteWhen a Priest is Ordained he is not meant to blab a person's business told to him when the person has said to him it is private being told in trust not to be broadcast and to be treated as confession and you hear it back again to you 2nd hand via a person who heard it in the first instance from the Priest and told this person who then tells you not to ever again tell the Priest anything you care about.
This same Priest heard confession in an office for a visitor to the Parish so that means he did not have to go over to the Church to hear it or wear a stole etc. he heard her confession in those circumstances so when this other person told him private matters and said to him it was to be treated as a confession it should have been treated the same as the Sacrament for the other person but it was not.
When person heard it back and approached him about it he said he told it to the other person IN CONFIDENCE. Fine thing that but she like the Priest passed it on to yet another person. How can anyone have respect or trust in such a Priest. He had the nerve to say when questioned about it later by the person whose confidence he broke that he would sue them if anyone was told and he then denied that when he heard it he accepted it as a confession and said that he would never have agreed to hear it under that guise but bottom line he did hear it, he was told it was a confession and he did blab it to another Parishioner.
Even if it had not been a confession the information he heard was not his to share with anyone else.
What good are Sacraments to a man like this who still serves in the Church. It is basically one persons word against a Priest, the same Priest who has put his hand on the Bible along with a paid servant and lied.
What then can be done. Absolutely nothing THE CHURCH RULES however corruptly.
Will never ever use the Sacrament of Confession again because of this. That seems to be fine seeing as you don't commit a mortal sin and yes before you ask I do go to Holy Communion most days in that time and don't feel I am the sinner in this scenario. I was not the one who broke the Seal of Confession as far as I am concerned.
An elderly parishioner had a lesser thing to report about confession with the same Priest but it was not as serious. She was in the middle of the prayer at the end of the Confession and stumbled over a few of the words. Priest told her not to bother saying it as it was ok. The week after she went to the Curate in Parish who told her she need not bother say the prayer because he believed she did not know it or was having trouble with it.
Bottom line the Priests had had a laugh about this poor unfortunate woman getting a bit mixed up during Confession with the words of the prayer.
There is also a verbal recording of same Priest in existence belittling Parishioners to a Nun and saying they are nut cases etc. Why should he still be treated or respected as a Priest - he is NO man of God.
This is evidence that Sacraments ARE broken even by those Ordained and who are not held accountable.