When to turn in a priest to the Bishop

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Soontobebride

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I don’t want to get into too many details because I hate talking bad about a priest but just for background:
Two different issues happened. We couldn’t get the priest to communicate with us regarding our marriage prep at all and we had a family member (teen) who had been wanting to be catholic for the last 5 years who’s mom finally gave permission for her to become Catholic. This same priest stalled her RCIA for months and would actively avoid us when we would see him. I finally emailed him again and asked if he had decided on her RCIA… after two+ months all he said was “I haven’t decided yet”.
The family member started feeling like she wasn’t wanted in the church so I started calling around and talked to another priest about getting her in RCIA before it was too late for this year. He also mentioned that he would be happy to marry us as well.
I emailed our pastor and he said he wouldn’t give permission for us to marry elsewhere then gave me an ultimatum about leaving our parish if we wanted to marry elsewhere…so we did.
I won’t lie it really, really hurt my feelings but I don’t want him in trouble. I showed a few others the email he sent about how he hasn’t decided yet and they said to turn him in. I didn’t because I don’t want to do it just because I’m hurt ( checking my own motives) but tonight a friend told me that she’s “heard other parishioners say similar things about him” so I’m not sure if I should turn him in or not. I’m also afraid that he will be super mad at me if I do. I know he will be there for at least 3 years and what if I have to go there… I’m afraid of a confrontation. Maybe I’m just overreacting. Opinions?
 
agreed, something does seem a bit weird about all of it, try to communicate with him one more time, if that doesn’t work, then I say probably write to the bishop, or continue on with the other priest you have, I get priests are busy, but he can’t simply ignore your requests forever
 
I might ask the priest who ended up helping you to speak with the one who wasn’t communicating first.
 
Soontobebride said:
said to turn him in
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Turn him in? He’s not a thief you’ve found pilfering your silver.

If you have left the parish, I suggest you talk to your current pastor about the situation and get his (name removed by moderator)ut.

If you do decide to do something, that something should start with the priest himself. It should begin with you tell him your convenes and how he alienated you by his actions.

If you feel the need to talk to someone at the diocese the person you should speak with is the vicar if clergy. So he can help the pastor.
 
Just to make sure I’ve understood everything you’re telling us here. You have now checked out of that first parish, you have arranged to get married in your new parish, and your young relative is going to do her RCIA in that new parish as well?

In that case, my suggestion would be to concentrate on getting your wedding done and getting the RCIA done as well. Once you get those two things done, see if you still feel you need to go to the diocese about the difficulties you had. Maybe by then you’ll have put it all behind you and you’d rather just let it go.
 
well, I thin technically, to receive the sacraments in a different parish than your own, you generally do need the pastor’s permission, correct me if I’m wrong, I think perhaps this might be what still be causing the issue
 
Every parish is part of a deanery which is headed by a vicar forane; find out who is the VF for that parish and contact him first.
 
We tried to get permission but instead he gave us an ultimatum to either marry there or change parishes. To be honest, our old parish is very beautiful and the cost to marry there is huge (upwards of $5000) so part of me thinks maybe it had to do with money? Or maybe he just didn’t want us to marry.
I guess I had moved on except that I was very sad because I feel kind of kicked out of our old parish…but with my friend saying others felt the same way I started thinking about how others told me to tell the bishop what happened so he didnt do this to anyone else and I kind of felt like maybe I failed by not telling the bishop.
I don’t know, I’m just confused and hurt.
 
Soontobebride said:
We tried to get permission but instead he gave us an ultimatum to either marry there or change parishes.
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Parishes are geographical (except for things like ethnic parishes). You may get on the mailing list at a new parish, but, your pastor is still the pastor of the parish where you live and he will have to give permission for you to marry elsewhere.

There seems to be some breakdown in communications.

Edit to add: Was this ever cleared up? It seems that there have been some communications issues in the past:
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Prohibition on marriage Family Life
Hopefully over the next few days I’ll figure out what the secret stuff is. I still don’t think it’s right to blame me for the abuse.
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$5000 is orders of magnitude greater than any wedding fee I’ve ever heard of. What could possibly justify such an excessive fee - is the church bringing in a symphony choir?
 
1ke said:
Turn him in? He’s not a thief you’ve found pilfering your silver.

If you have left the parish, I suggest you talk to your current pastor about the situation and get his (name removed by moderator)ut.

If you do decide to do something, that something should start with the priest himself. It should begin with you tell him your convenes and how he alienated you by his actions.

If you feel the need to talk to someone at the diocese the person you should speak with is the vicar if clergy. So he can help the pastor.
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If he really e-mailed her and wrote that “he wouldn’t give permission for us to marry elsewhere then gave me an ultimatum about leaving our parish if we wanted to marry elsewhere,” I really don’t see a problem with forwarding that to the vicar of clergy. I’d say, “While my fiance and I were in fact willing to do as suggested and we did join the parish of a different pastor, we found the way this was presented to us as _______________.”

Yes, when the evidence of the interchange is in writing, the vicar of clergy might well want a chance to help the pastor word his position a bit differently in the future. The exact policy of the bishop will of course vary, but this probably isn’t the typical way a bishop would want one of his priests to approach this issue.

I don’t know that any pastor has the right to put someone out of his parish because they had the audacity to get married somewhere else. Does he have that right? I could see where another priest might refuse to preside at a wedding without the permission of the couple’s proper pastor, but that is a bit different matter.
 
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Soontobebride said:
We tried to get permission but instead he gave us an ultimatum to either marry there or change parishes. To be honest, our old parish is very beautiful and the cost to marry there is huge (upwards of $5000) so part of me thinks maybe it had to do with money? Or maybe he just didn’t want us to marry.
I guess I had moved on except that I was very sad because I feel kind of kicked out of our old parish…but with my friend saying others felt the same way I started thinking about how others told me to tell the bishop what happened so he didnt do this to anyone else and I kind of felt like maybe I failed by not telling the bishop.
I don’t know, I’m just confused and hurt.
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Please tell me that parishioners aren’t charged that.
 
Stories like this break my heart because it only takes one experience like this for some folks to leave the church.
 
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