CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- A Vatican representative called Wednesday for the cancelation of the debt of poor countries facing a “triple economic shock” as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
Archbishop Gabriele Ca… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 11:10 am (CNA).- A priest in the Archdiocese of New Orleans has been arrested along with two women and charged with obscenity after he was discovered filming a pornographic video on a parish church altar.
Fr. Travis Clark, 37, the pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul in Pearl River, Louisiana, was arrested together with Mindy Dixon, 41, and Melissa Cheng, 23, on September 30.
A local resident told police they noticed the lights were on in the parish church, and upon looking in the windows, saw the three engaged in sexual activity on the altar. According to reports, the altar of the church had been outfitted with stage lighting.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans announced the following day, Oct. 1, that Clark had been arrested and removed from ministry. Initially, no details were given for the cause of his removal, other than to confirm that he was not accused of any offences related to abuse of minors.
Details were not revealed until Oct. 8, when public records were released.
Dixon is a pornagraphic performer and “dominatrix.” According to Nola.com, she had posted on her social media the day before her arrest that she was headed to New Orleans to “defile a house of God” alongside another “dominatrix,” presumably Cheng.
Police believe the sexual encounter to have been consensual, and have not filed charges related to sexual assault. The obscenity charge stemmed from the fact that the sex act was visible from a window.
Clark is expected to face canonical sanctions for violations of clerical continence, and for the profanation of an altar, which is constituted a crime in canon 1376 of the Code of Canon Law, which provides that “a person who profanes a movable or immovable sacred object is to be punished with a just penalty.”
Clark was ordained a priest in 2013, and became the pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul in 2019. He had recently been named the chaplain of Pope John Paul II High School in Slidell, Louisiana, replacing another priest who resigned this summer. That priest, Fr. Paul Wattingly, was also suspended from public ministry Oct 1, after he admitted to abusing a minor in 2013.
“Both of these situations are very troubling to me. When a priest does not live out his vocation faithfully he suffers consequences and I must notify the parishioners, school families, and public in general,” said Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans in an Oct. 1 statement announcing the suspensions.
“Please pray for all those affected, especially the parishioners of the parishes and school communities where they have served,” he added.
Aymond has since performed a penitential liturgy of atonement and re-consecration of the altar at Sts. Peter and Paul church following the act of profanation.
As news of the story spread Friday, one priest on Twitter urged Catholics to pray prayers of reparation, “consoling the heart of Jesus.”
I just heard about a priest who did something truly diabolical recently. I won’t share the details because it’s very upsetting. But please, PLEASE, spend some time in prayer today consoling the heart of Jesus in reparation for this sin, and all sins. You can pray this chaplet. pic.twitter.com/G6KhX9xmXw
— Fr. Tom Bombadil, Ring Wraith? (@calix517) October 9, 2020
Clark, Dixon, and Cheng have all been released on bail.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 9, 2020 / 09:10 am (CNA).- When the Vatican purchased a London luxury apartment building from its investment manager in 2018, the building owner and the deal’s broker may have had a conflict of interest during negot… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 08:15 am (CNA).- Archbishop Eamon Martin had been thinking about the rosary ever since the pandemic broke out. In previous times of adversity, Irish Catholics had turned to the devotion. Could that tradition be revived now… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has expressed “dramatic concern” about the Catholic Church in Germany, according to a bishop who met him this week.
Bishop Heinz-Josef Algermissen said that the pope addressed the situ… […]
Rome Newsroom, Oct 8, 2020 / 05:43 pm (CNA).- Catholic politicians have an obligation to fight against abortion and euthanasia, while applying the whole of Catholic social teaching in their political work, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, prefect emeritus of … […]
Washington D.C., Oct 8, 2020 / 02:19 pm (CNA).- Members of Congress are supporting a Washington, D.C., Baptist church in its court case against the city’s enforcement of its COVID restrictions on outdoor religious services.
Capitol Hill Ba… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 8, 2020 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Wednesday urged the Trump administration to resume negotiations for further COVID-19 financial relief, after President Trump reportedly ordered negotiations to cease T… […]
Rome Newsroom, Oct 8, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- South Korea’s National Assembly is considering a proposal to allow abortion up to 14 weeks as the deadline approaches to revise the country’s abortion law.
After the national law prohibiting ab… […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 8, 2020 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- The chair of the U.S. bishops’ religious freedom committee responded Thursday to the ongoing scrutiny of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s religious beliefs.
“The Constitution specifically says there should be ‘no religious test for office,’” Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami told CNA on Thursday of Barrett, whose confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court are set to begin Oct. 12 before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Those who are “raising the issue” of Barrett’s religious beliefs during consideration of her nomination to the Supreme Court, he said, “are not honoring the principals of our Constitution and thereby contribute to undermining the rule of law in our nation.”
Barrett, a judge on the Seventh Circuit appeals court and a Catholic mother of seven, is also a former Notre Dame law professor and member of the ecumenical group People of Praise.
Her religious beliefs have received scrutiny in the press and by Democratic senators.
This week, The Guardian and the Washington Post reported that Barrett, while a law student, resided at the home of the co-founder of People of Praise, a charismatic ecumenical group founded in 1971 in South Bend, Indiana.
The Guardian called the group “secretive” and said it “has been criticized for dominating the lives of its members and subjugating women.”
On Tuesday, the Washington Post noted Barrett’s position of “handmaid” in People of Praise. The paper interviewed former members of the group who alleged that women held lesser positions in the group to men, and that wives were expected to cede decision-making in the home to husbands.
Other recent reports on Barrett’s membership in People of Praise in Newsweek and Reuters—since corrected—either connected or asked if a connection existed between the group, its discontinued use of the term “handmaiden,” and the 1985 dystopian novel and later TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The group’s use of the term “handmaiden,” however, was rooted in Scripture—and Archbishop Wenski spoke out against the secular appropriation of the word.
“The word ‘Handmaiden’ – ‘ancilla’ in Latin – has deep biblical roots and in the New Testament refers especially to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who declares herself to be the ‘handmaiden of the Lord’,” Wenski said.
“That a novelist would ‘culturally appropriate’ this word to use in a distorted way to promote an ideology hostile to the Judeo-Christian patrimony of Western civilization only points to the growing biblical illiteracy of our elites and is indeed very disappointing,” he said.
In 2017, during Barrett’s confirmation hearings for the appeals court, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she was concerned that Barrett’s religious views on abortion and other issues might influence her rulings on the court.
Feinstein told Barrett that “when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern.” The senator accused Barrett of having “a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail” over the law.
Some Democratic senators have continued to warn that Barrett’s Catholic beliefs in issues such as abortion and assisted reproductive technology could influence her decision-making on the bench.
“Her faith is irrelevant,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said of Barrett at a Sept. 30 press conference. “What the real issue her is whether her closely-held views can be separated from her ability to make objective, fair decisions with a lifetime appointment.”
“I fear that, if confirmed to the nation’s highest court, Judge Barrett would be unable to resist the temptation of overturning decades of judicial precedent in an effort to force every American family to adhere to her individual moral code,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth said in an Oct. 2 “dear colleague” letter.
Duckworth noted that Barrett signed on to a 2006 letter by St. Joseph County Right to Life that supported the right to life “from fertilization.” The group, Duckworth said, opposes in vitro fertilization (IVF), the same treatment Duckworth used to have her children.
“I fear that if a case involving ART [Assisted Reproductive Technology] were to be brought before the bench, families like mine would not be able to trust that her [Barrett’s] opinions would be based on facts, laws and the Constitution rather than swayed by her personal beliefs,” Duckworth said.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that “It is the definition of discrimination to assert that Justice Barrett’s particular faith makes her uniquely unqualified for this promotion,”
McConnell condemned the suggestions “that Judge Barrett is too Christian, or the wrong kind of Christian, to be a good judge.”
“Every Supreme Court Justice in history has possessed personal views,” he said.
© Catholic World Report