When a priest isn't really a priest at all

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DL82 said:
He’d be excommunicated,
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Not necessarily.
Can. 1378 . . . .
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§2. The following incur a latae sententiae penalty of interdict or, if a cleric, a latae sententiae penalty of suspension:
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1. a person who attempts the liturgical action of the Eucharistic sacrifice though not promoted to the sacerdotal order;
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  1. apart from the case mentioned in §1, a person who, though unable to give sacramental absolution validly, attempts to impart it or who hears sacramental confession.
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§3. In the cases mentioned in §2, other penalties, not excluding excommunication, can be added according to the gravity of the delict.
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Can. 1379 In addition to the cases mentioned in can. 1378, a person who simulates the administration of a sacrament is to be punished with a just penalty.
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Can. 1381 §1. Whoever usurps an ecclesiastical office is to be punished with a just penalty.
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Can. 1384 In addition to the cases mentioned in cann. 1378-1383, a person who illegitimately performs a priestly function or another sacred ministry can be punished with a just penalty.
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So he’s already interdicted; I believe this means that he cannot celebrate any act of worship at all (some of which he shouldn’t’ve done anyway, because he isn’t a priest) and, more importantly, cannot celebrate Sacraments or sacramentals and – here’s the worst of it – cannot receive the Sacraments.
MikeGabby said:
The Sacraments celebrated by this lay person are valid. Why? Ecclesia Supla (the Church Supplies)!

Pax et Bonum
Mike Gabby
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No.
  • Confirmation: “The ordinary minister of confirmation is a bishop; a presbyter provided with this faculty in virtue of universal law or the special grant of the competent authority also confers this sacrament validly.” Canon 882.
  • Communion: “The minister who is able to confect the sacrament of the Eucharist in the person of Christ is a validly ordained priest alone.” Canon 900, § 1.
  • Reconciliation: “A priest alone is the minister of the sacrament of penance.” Canon 965.
  • Annointing of the Sick: “Every priest and a priest alone validly administers the anointing of the sick.” Canon 1003, § 1.
  • Matrimony: “Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. 144, 1112, §1, 1116, and 1127, §§1-2.” Canon 1108, § 1. “To be valid, the delegation of the faculty to assist at marriages must be given to specific persons expressly.” Canon 1111, § 2.
  • Holy Orders (not that it’s likely he tried this one): “The minister of sacred ordination is a consecrated bishop.” Canon 1012.
“Ecclesia Supplet” is only true “in factual or legal common error and in positive and probable doubt of law or of fact.” See Canon 144, § 1. There ain’t no error here, and it isn’t a question of probable doubt (either of law or of fact). From what we’ve seen, this guy just, plain and simple, impersonated a priest. That’s not a mistake; it’s a fraud.

As for the Sacraments, “Ecclesia Supplet” only applies to faculties of the Sacrament of Confirmation, Absolution of Sins during the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the Sacrament of Matrimony. See Canon 144, § 2. It does not apply to the Eucharist or Holy Orders, for example; and, more importantly, it does not apply to the power to perform the three Sacraments to which it applies. “Ecclesia Supplet” presupposes the power to perform the Sacrament; then, if there is some defect in the priest’s faculty to perform it (e.g., if his bishop has suspended him), the Church supplies the authority in cases of doubt or error.

As I understand the OP, this guy never had the power to perform any Sacrament (except Baptism, of course, as do all humans with the proper intent); accordingly, he could not perform those Sacraments validly at all. Everyone he victimized is in the same position as if no Sacrament had been performed, because that’s in fact what happened: no Sacrament was performed.
 
jmcrae said:
If he was acting the part, it would be impossible to know. It’s easy enough to look back and say, “Yeah, I always thought there was something iffy about that guy,” but really, we have no way of knowing.

The Bishop, though - isn’t he supposed to check everyone’s bona fides, and make sure he knows for a fact that the man has been ordained a priest in the Catholic Church, before he starts serving in a parish? :confused:
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A priest is to be permitted to celebrate even if the rector of the church does not know him, provided that either he presents a letter of introduction from his ordinary or superior, issued at least within the year, or it can be judged prudently that he is not impeded from celebrating.
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Canon 903.

I imagine that the bishop is already aware of this problem (that would’ve been my first telephone call if I were the pastor who found out about it), and he presumably will issue some stricter requirements; but the letter is supposed to be sufficient.
 
Godfollower said:
No, that’s Hinduism.

😃
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That’s the only bright spot in all of this!

How sickening and sad everything else is. I would be even more sickened and sad if I had gone to confession to that guy or if someone in my family had received the annointing of the sick from him. It makes me sad for all of those who were affected by this and I will keep all in my prayers.
 
We just found out Sunday. Our parish priest said he presented all the appropriate documents which had the signature of our archbishop. This guy went through a lot of trouble to make things look genuine. He apparently presented himself as a bi-ritual priest, I can’t remember positively what rite he said he was. We were all kind of in the state of shock while father was explaining. Honestly I did not get any weird vibes at all. Ours is a very traditional parish. I thought his very few slip ups was due to that. We have many not so traditional parishes around us so I thought he was just feeling a bit lost with the Latin, the bells, the kneeling for communion. We’ve had other visiting priests who seemed far more hesitant than this impostor.

He prayed with our elderly priest who was hospitalized before he past away. Many think of this elderly priest as saintly. He did not suspect anything. Our pastor, who is a bright and intuitive man did not suspect anything. My husband had him in confession and said nothing seemed off, he gave good direction. I am skeptic by nature. When I first saw him, he struck me as not a strong traditional priest just by first impression, but his homilies were not heterodox. Nothing set off bells that this was not a priest, or that this person had some kind of issues. I was surprised Lizanne said she suspected something was off because I truly did not sense that. All of those who were there for father’s announcement seemed in utter shock. People were saying what a nice man he seemed to be.

Our pastor did not mention what motivation was behind this but father did say I believe he was as Just Lurking put “latae sententiae”, which he said was like excommunication and could only be lifted by the Holy Father if this man chooses to repent.

The archdiocese is investigating and he said more will be forth coming.
 
rayne89 said:
We just found out Sunday. Our parish priest said he presented all the appropriate documents which had the signature of our archbishop. This guy went through a lot of trouble to make things look genuine. He apparently presented himself as a bi-ritual priest, I can’t remember positively what rite he said he was. We were all kind of in the state of shock while father was explaining. Honestly I did not get any weird vibes at all. Ours is a very traditional parish. I thought his very few slip ups was due to that. We have many not so traditional parishes around us so I thought he was just feeling a bit lost with the Latin, the bells, the kneeling for communion. We’ve had other visiting priests who seemed far more hesitant than this impostor.

He prayed with our elderly priest who was hospitalized before he past away. Many think of this elderly priest as saintly. He did not suspect anything. Our pastor, who is a bright and intuitive man did not suspect anything. My husband had him in confession and said nothing seemed off, he gave good direction. I am skeptic by nature. When I first saw him, he struck me as not a strong traditional priest just by first impression, but his homilies were not heterodox. Nothing set off bells that this was not a priest, or that this person had some kind of issues. I was surprised Lizanne said she suspected something was off because I truly did not sense that. All of those who were there for father’s announcement seemed in utter shock. People were saying what a nice man he seemed to be.

Our pastor did not mention what motivation was behind this but father did say I believe he was as Just Lurking put “latae sententiae”, which he said was like excommunication and could only be lifted by the Holy Father if this man chooses to repent.

The archdiocese is investigating and he said more will be forth coming.
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Well, that explains it he was Bi…😉
How embarassing for this archdiocees.
 
I still don’t get it. This isn’t 1850. Nobody relies solely on letters of introduction anymore. I’m just a regular lay joe and when our pastor announces a new associate priest or even just a recurring guest priest who will be helping out on Sundays, we always get a little bio story.

If I happen to know anybody in one of his previous assignments, I always call them up and chat about him, find out his interests, see if they like his homilies, see if they like him for confession or not…

Hard to believe pastors don’t do this too. It’s not like we have thousands of priests in most diocese that never know each other. Not even a phone to the claimed previous pastor?

Wouldn’t you talk to the previous department head of an employee transferred to your supervision? Of course priests are more than employees, but still…
 
manualman said:
I still don’t get it. This isn’t 1850. Nobody relies solely on letters of introduction anymore. I’m just a regular lay joe and when our pastor announces a new associate priest or even just a recurring guest priest who will be helping out on Sundays, we always get a little bio story.

If I happen to know anybody in one of his previous assignments, I always call them up and chat about him, find out his interests, see if they like his homilies, see if they like him for confession or not…

Hard to believe pastors don’t do this too. It’s not like we have thousands of priests in most diocese that never know each other. Not even a phone to the claimed previous pastor?

Wouldn’t you talk to the previous department head of an employee transferred to your supervision? Of course priests are more than employees, but still…
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He didn’t become one of our parish priests. He was just a “visiting priest” that was helping out. We have 6 Masses on Sunday and one of our elderly priests was hospitalized and then passed away the impostor offered to help. Hind sight is 20/20 but if everything seems normal why would you suspect? He’s obviously a pathological liar and very good at it to have fooled so many people.
 
I have actually heard of his happening before and it occurs in many professions. Medicine, law, education, journalism, even athletics and the military. Last year, a high school football player in Nevada faked his own college football recruitment and scholarship to the University of California-Berkeley. In Atlanta, a man was arrested in the ER of a small hospital after posing as a doctor. Even his wife was fooled. My Vietnam veteran philosophy professor had several encounters with men who lied about being in 'Nam.

This betrayal of trust is only compounded when it comes from a person impersonating a priest. I cannot begin to speculate the motives behind these individuals and, I daresay, even the impostors themselves can’t fully explain why they created their ruses. These are lies which are doomed from the beginning.

On my application to the seminary, there were two questions that stood out for their serious tone. One of them was had I ever impersonated a priest. I was shocked as the implications of this one question were explained to me. Not long after that a high school buddy of mine asked if he could start calling me Father. My quick and rather loud response to the negative surprised us both.
 
A similar thing happened about 20 years ago in a Scottish Cathedral. The person in question had been saying Mass for a few weeks (I think he claimed to be in the area on holiday) and was only discovered when he made a sexual attack on a woman who had asked at the cathedral for a home visit from a priest. Enquiries revealed that whatever paperwork he had provided to the Cathedral staff was false.
Different but just a shocking was a private detective on TV who said that he was in an airport in clerical garb when a man had a heart attack and asked for a priest, the airport staff saw the man in the clerical outfit and asked if he was a Catholic priest, he said that he was (not knowing why he was being asked) but then laughingly retailed that he did indeed hear the poor man’s confession just before his death.
 
…To also add that there is at least one person on Youtube who claimed to be a “Catholic Priest” and who was found not to be ('Father" Nathan Monk). This person made a very good case for Catholic doctrine in his videos but was discovered by some sufficiently observant person not to be found anywhere in registers of priests in Florida where he claimed to be based. He was banned by Youtube for several months but is on there again saying that it was all a misunderstanding and that he never claimed to be other than a priest of the ‘old catholic church’ (oh yes he did!). I subsequently found out that anyone can call themselves by the title of ‘old catholic priest’ by paying a fee to a bishop of one of the many ‘churches’ claiming that title and futhermore (in the case of the old catholic ‘bishop’ I dealt with) after having a short interview, and paying around $200, I could be ordained. The ‘bishop’ also gave me full details of the career opportunities available to me following payment of my fee, interview and ‘ordination’ - forces or hospital chaplain with substantial salary and/or fees that I could charge for marriages, baptisms and funerals etc etc and that, if I wished I could do this on a part-time basis. It is frightening that the term ‘Catholic priest’ can be so abused.
 
That’s absolutely horrifying. It just goes to show how easy it is to fool people if you work hard enough at it. Thank God someone noticed…
 
As has been said, this is hardly unique to the priestly profession. Cases come up with sickening frequency of people passing themselves off as doctors, lawyers and so on. I’d imagine the credentials of people in those professions would be just as easy to check out, if not easier.

If he received a salary or remuneration from the diocese there might be a case against this man for fraud or something.
 
By the way thank you all for your prayers -for us, our parish, and this man. I’m still trying to process this. I’m so glad I didn’t have him for confession I think it would have really had a great deal of difficulty, and I extremely glad my daughter didn’t confess to him either. Obviously it disturbs my husband but his personality is much “relaxed” (for lack of a better word) so I think it doesn’t effect him like it would me.

I’ve had a couple “off” experiences in confession at Catholic conferences over the years and now I’m starting to question were those guys priests? Did anyone check? Could anyone in priestly attire walk into a confessional at a busy conference and no one notice?

And what if this guy was a pervert and I had sent my daughter into the confessional with a pathological liar, a mentally disturbed person?

You just take things for granted that someone wouldn’t do this, and certainly couldn’t pull it off without raising suspicion. And why would you go through so much trouble? This had to have taken a lot of planning, study, even money. The guy had his own vestiments. His homilies were about the love of Jesus, being Christians -all while he standing there knowing he’s lying, knowing he’s fooling us all. Knowing were kneeling for what we think is communion and he’s handing us wafers of bread. Letting people pour out their hearts in confession, giving them direction all while he’s lying and pretending to absolve people.

And the worst of all anointing those dying when he knew he had no ability to actually do so. His pretense was of warmth and caring. Our pastor said he prayed beautifully. He prayed for people all the while he knowing he was lying. He was a Catholic, he knew what the sacraments were, he knew nothing he did was valid. He pretended to care while betraying everyone.

Honestly it feels very evil to me.
 
I think this question was asked earlier but the answer delved into Canonical Law, which obviously doesn’t have meaning for this guy. Is there any state or federal Law that this person has broken so he can be made to make reparations in this life? Obviously, he could be sued in Civil court, but has he actually broken a law? Fraud? I don’t know.
 
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