Archdiocese removes prominent Detroit priest from pulpit

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I hate to break it to these Detroit people who think their priest is being persecuted for being traditional, but the same thing happened to a priest in my home diocese who is definitely the NON-traditional sort, a credible accusation from almost 25 years ago, and he was similarly removed immediately from his parish and placed in some secluded location while the case goes through the legal proceedings. His name and the situation were also published. It’s standard operating procedure.
 
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Right. Sad to say, but the episcopacy and the priests do not get the benefit of the doubt thanks to their now long-standing egregious record in this regard. It seems to me that many priests who did turn out to be abusers were well-beloved in their parishes, and had many vehement defenders. In the long run, a formal investigative process may be beneficial to the accused if he is innocent, as a more definitive inquiry will be made than just an accusation, and one based on alleged repressed memories at that. It certainly sounds like there will be witnesses to either corroborate or impeach the accuser’s allegation.

What is interesting to me is what is contained in the CM article - - Vatican procedures for investigation require that the priest not be named while an investigation is pending? That doesn’t seem practical - - if the parish priest just disappears, that would almost be worse than an announcement of an investigation - - nor does it allow other potential/alleged victims to have notice and come forward. It seems to me that something even-handed has to be provided.
 
But is it the correct operating procedure? As much as I hate to admit it, Voris has a point regarding Pope Francis’s recent summit on handling abuse cases. The Holy Father did point out:
it is necessary to prevent the lists of the accused being published, even by the dioceses, before the preliminary investigation and the definitive condemnation.
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On the other hand, if you remove a priest from his ministry, something has to be said. Its a sad situation, but certainly brought on by horrible handling of the situation in the past.
 
In the USA, criminal justice matters are generally matters of public record.

Part of the reason we have this whole abuse crisis to begin with is that the Church handled its investigations internally, which included keeping the entire situation private unless and until such time as the story leaked to the press or law enforcement decided to go after a particularly egregious clergy offender. Obviously this secrecy created a lot of problems, including priests continuing to abuse additional victims who trusted them, and parishes being shocked to find out after years of trusting a priest that he’d been allegedly abusing multiple victims.

We are now at the point where clergy have been prosecuted for “covering up” - one of the first examples of this was actually the pastor a couple of parishes over from where I’m sitting, who had previously been a Diocesan official involved with these cases.

Meanwhile we also have “mandatory reporting” laws for suspected abusers, that churches along with all other institutions like schools and hospitals are expected to comply with. Mandatory reporting was put in place largely because not only churches but also schools, hospitals and other institutions would handle things internally and not disclose accusations.

Taking all the above into account, a diocese that gets a credible allegation of abuse pretty much has to remove the priest from duty, send the priest into isolation, cooperate with law enforcement, and release the name of the priest. Otherwise, law enforcement and/or the press will likely release the name anyway, and the diocese will be accused of some kind of non-compliance or cover-up.

Law enforcement in the USA and in many Western countries is fairly trustworthy at this point. I can see this being more of a concern for the Holy Father in countries where law enforcement is generally corrupt and/or there is a large bias against the Church. But in the US, I really can’t see the Church making a credible argument after all the scandals culminating in McCarrick that allegations of child abuse should be handled internally and dioceses shouldn’t release the names of the priests. That would likely result in legal issues for the dioceses, in addition to a priest just vanishing from his parish with no explanation since they couldn’t very well leave him in his ministry due to liability risk.
 
Agreed with all of this. If anything, the issue likely points to a flaw in Pope Francis’s directives.
 
The basic concept of the Church handling discipline for its own priests goes back to the early centuries of the Church in Europe where secular authorities such as kings and princes would interfere with the Church’s priests. The Church basically stepped up and said, don’t mess with our priests, only we can enforce discipline on our priests. It was understandable in that context, where the kings and princes were often vying with the Church for some kind of power. It makes less sense in a context where a priest is breaking generally accepted laws and posing a danger to the community, and the Church repeatedly failed to remove such priests and just sent them someplace else where they wreaked more havoc.
 
Deuteronomy 19:15-21 - Laws Concerning Witnesses

"A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.

[16] "If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing,

[17] then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days.

[18] "The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely,

[19] then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. "

The Archdiocese looks pretty weak in what they’ve done when ALL the insufficient info is weighed.

OH … they look OK for delving into the matter (at a time when the Church is under fire for not doing so when it came to sexual allegations) and taking some action (at a time when just listening to charges and being inactive or merely transferring a suspect seems to some imprudent) … but there has been a well known commandment against false witness(es, -ing) longer than there’s been a church technically.

It is not news to observe that there has been a feud between the Archdiocese of Detroit’s Bishop and Church Militant going on for some time. The accused priest is seen by some at Church Militant as the kind of priest they like, and they attend his masses at his parish.

Is the Diocese just doing its best in a bad situation … or might this single person charge (long after the “fact” < or not) be a convenient justification for giving Michael Voris and his organization a thumb in the eye by removing on of their “highly thought of” priests (and later replacing him with …)?

Of course the righteous complaint of Church Militant in this case also will apply to THEM should they hear a juicy accusation from but ONE witness regarding a clergyman or Bishop elsewhere.

Voris makes a good point about fact checking when it comes to such matters (in the above video) …
and the business of “purging the evil from you” must be done right. Bearing false witness (or even proceeding without sufficient witness) must never be used even to justify the removal of a false priest (or true priest who nevertheless brought scandal upon the church).
  • It’s not wrong for a SINGLE witness to tell the truth about a thing of course.
    But the judging body has its marching orders regarding what it needs to proceed. TWO (or more witnesses agreeing and testifying to the same facts). And sufficient facts. The looking into things is another matter. Priests, etc. should know if there are allegations out there against them and what they are (even with just one accuser). And to be able to answer them as publicly or privately as the accuser was able to accuse. < in this Detroit case the Archdiocese published the charges, but disallowed publishing the priest’s public denial.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
I can see this being more of a concern for the Holy Father in countries where law enforcement is generally corrupt and/or there is a large bias against the Church.
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No doubt, and I think looking back at the Holy Father’s background in Argentina, we have to remember that he was under a brutal military dictatorship for many years, that caused many people to “disappear” for simply opposing the regime. Essentially there was very little justice unless you were on the side of the junta. And a trumped-up charge would certainly be a convenient way to make a troublesome anti-junta priest “disappear”.
 
CaptFun said:
It’s not wrong for a SINGLE witness to tell the truth about a thing of course.
But the judging body has its marching orders regarding what it needs to proceed. TWO (or more witnesses agreeing and testifying to the same facts). And sufficient facts. The looking into things is another matter. Priests, etc. should know if there are allegations out there against them and what they are (even with just one accuser). And to be able to answer them as publicly or privately as the accuser was able to accuse. < in this Detroit case the Archdiocese published the charges, but disallowed publishing the priest’s public denial.
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This is always a complicated situation, but with way too many cases reported, we should be getting better at it. A priest I knew and trusted was ordained the year I graduated from high school. He used to take me and some other seminarians to picnics and to go swimming. He would tell us about his work with broken marriages and crisis pregnancies. On the way home, we would pray the rosary. Nothing bad ever happened.

Almost 50 years later someone accused him of improper conduct at a swimming pool 25 years before. I was very skeptical about the accusation. What happened next is all too typical. Several more men came forward with similar accusations. Some other bad things in his history came out. The diocese settled his case in a package with three other priests for more than $4 million, and he retired from ministry. He was already 75 at that time.

Sexual misconduct with minors is rarely a one and done behavior. If a single witness comes forward and there are no other accusations, it may indicate the charge is not credible, but when the first charge becomes public, it gives others the courage to come forward. It is a very difficult situation for a bishop to balance the rights of the accused with the duty to protect children and get justice for victims. After so many bad outcomes it is my opinion that the bishop should not act alone. Neither should his only adviser be a lawyer. He needs to rely on people who have expertise in several areas, but share a passion for both justice and charity.
 
Trader said:
Sexual misconduct with minors is rarely a one and done behavior. If a single witness comes forward and there are no other accusations, it may indicate the charge is not credible, but when the first charge becomes public, it gives others the courage to come forward. It is a very difficult situation for a bishop to balance the rights of the accused with the duty to protect children and get justice for victims.
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So true. And ironically I believe that the public knowledge of Cdl Pells accusation and subsequent conviction, will demonstrate that this one off accuser may be mistaken in his recollections. The Appeals process is underway at the moment and hopefully by Gods grace the truth can prevail. I for one and many who are perfectly on board with purging the Church of this scourge, don’t accept that the charge against Cdl Pell was ever credible.
 
Of course, Voris, who is willing to slam every bishop who once met a predator or had supervision over someone who was later found out to be a predator, is on the defense here. The basic take of his website, if Voris agrees with their theology, they did nothing wrong. If he disagrees, he is responsible for everything that ever goes wrong.

He shouldn’t be used as a source on any news article ever.
 
drcube said:
Of course, Voris, who is willing to slam every bishop who once met a predator or had supervision over someone who was later found out to be a predator, is on the defense here. The basic take of his website, if Voris agrees with their theology, they did nothing wrong. If he disagrees, he is responsible for everything that ever goes wrong.

He shouldn’t be used as a source on any news article ever.
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Per the last sentence … that’d adopt the logical fallacy of “poisoning the well” (of information). That is, if something is TRUE and truly reported … IT doesn’t become otherwise due to what is lacking in the messenger. You seem to consider him a low (no?) credibility source on these matters or in this case. IT is a specific case though, and may be complicated, but I thought his critiques in the matter were germane (i.e. if the Diocese is interested in finding the truth of the disputed matter … why allow the public just one side of the story when the other side denies the charges (of the ONE person who made them).

If you’ve never seen Voris, this video shows an impromptu meeting between parishioners of the accused priest’s parish complaining to a Diocesan spokesperson about a handout that seemed to violate Vatican guidelines for how things are to be done … and the lack of the priest’s denial.

Should the priest’s denial be true … it would be a case of someone “bearing false witness” yet getting all sorts of back up from that priest’s Diocese for … who knows what reason.

Granted, drcube (welcome by the way 😃) Voris’ Church Militant TV ministry seems to day after day report on what it sees as

heterodoxy, scandals, and tolerance-to-promotion of “new, improved” notions of Catholicism - or suppression of people holding long established views in line with the Catechism …

they do provide quite a bit of supporting evidence backing their (openly “traditional” < or “conservative” … or ?) positions.

Voris sometimes praises Bishops and priests and laypeople who his organization sees as either standing up for the truth of the faith … or being victims of clerical injustice … even when CMTV had previously criticized them (e.g. Pope Francis) on one matter or another.

Emotionally, I once thought any Catholic who criticized a Church leader for any reason (let alone NO reason … as I used to see people do with the late Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict) … were just TERRIBLE!

After seeing so many REAL scandals rocking the Church and despoiling her reputation, finances, and evangelical outreach … I sadly had to admit that sometimes “Church leaders” might be a High Priest Caiaphas or Annas, or a Bishop Arius (author of the Arian heresy) … and that their critics might be
a bit like St. Peter, St. John the Baptist, and Arius’ doctrinal opponent St. Athanasius.

i.e. I look deeper now … . :pray:t5: for the Lord’s will and the good of the Church.

Michael Voris and Parishioners Confront Msgr. Bugarin Pt. 2 - YouTube < meeting after Diocese rep distrib’d fliers w/o priest’s 5 word denial.

 
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Thanks for posting that Maxirad. LISTENED to it more than saw it, as I was driving around.

I particularly liked the “pray for EVERYONE” message at the end. It gave me peace (though the controversy didn’t) … as it’s not something enemies of the Church would do. 🙏😇
 
CaptFun said:
Per the last sentence … that’d adopt the logical fallacy of “poisoning the well” (of information) . That is, if something is TRUE and truly reported … IT doesn’t become otherwise due to what is lacking in the messenger. You seem to consider him a low (no?) credibility source on these matters or in this case
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Voris has no credibility as you can predict if he will support claims of abuse based on the theology of the priest being accused. If Fr. Perrone supported positions that Voris did not agree with, Voris would be using these charges to attack him, but Fr. Perrone’s theology is in line with Voris, so he is innocent. If that overrides all considerations of truth, then that person is not a reliable source.

It is also interesting that Voris is concerned about allowing Perrone’s statement. Voris regularly has articles attacking bishops that might have been living in the same house as a predator, insinuating that they must have known something. Voris also attacked Perrone’s alleged victim by claiming that the memories of the abuse were somehow not genuine. You seem concerned with baring false witness, then you must be concerned with Voris skirting the truth on a regular basis.
 
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