The Archbishop of Baltimore has ordered Father Ray Martin to resign as pastor of three churches and sign a statement apologizing for "bringing scandal to the church".
Father Martin was cited for the liturgical offence of celebrating a funeral Mass with several clergy including a very close friend of the deceased, Rev. Annette Chappell, pastor of the Episcopal Church of the Redemption. She read the Gospel.
He was also cited for the administrative offence of hiring a maintenance man who had criminal charges on his record.
My Lord! . . . we Catholics!
3 comments:
Indeed...it has long been my contention that religion has done more to harm the good name of God than just about anything else...
What is this poor man doing pastoring 3 churches? He shouldn't have been ordered to resign; he should've simply been spoken to. His is not the only payroll hosting someone with a record.
And anonymous, I'm sure you'll agree that most everyone has an uncle who has done far worse in God's good name.
I think the Church needs to be more courageous in finding new paths towards ecumenism. Sometimes priests do what they think is right and end up being punished for it, but at the basis of it is only one thing: that sometimes the Spririt inspires us to do something totally different, thus raising a ruckus so that people (and hierarchy) may start to think about certain possibilities. If this is what the Spirit had in mind, suffocating the voice of the pastor means trying to snuff out the voice of the Spirit Himself, but at least the discussion has begun. Whether or not something positive comes of it, is a totally different issue. In the meantime, the pastor in question, whether courageous or just naive, has been punished, and I believe excessively so, if these are the only two "infractions" of which he's been accused. But maybe there's a lot more behind it that we don't know.
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