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DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the once-powerful American prelate who was expelled from the priesthood for sexual abuse, pleaded not guilty Friday to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception in Massachusetts nearly 50 years ago.

A document obtained by The Associated Press on Friday shows Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years for molesting children. The statistics for 2011-12 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of priests who have been defrocked. Prior to that, it had only publicly revealed the number of alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received. The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting to help the Holy See defend itself before a U.N. committee this week in...

<p>A United Methodist pastor was convicted Monday of breaking church law by officiating his son's same-sex wedding and could be defrocked after a high-profile trial that has rekindled debate over the denomination's policy on gay marriage.</p> <p>The Methodist church put the Rev. Frank Schaefer on trial in southeastern Pennsylvania, accusing him of breaking his pastoral vows by presiding over the 2007 ceremony in Massachusetts.</p>

A Pennsylvania pastor charged under United Methodist law with officiating his son's same-sex marriage is scheduled to go on trial. The Rev. Frank Schaefer, 51, could be defrocked.... "Public opinion has changed very rapidly," said the pastor's son.... ...Schaefer could have avoided a trial if he had agreed never again to perform a same-gender wedding, but he declined because three of his four children are gay.

Monsignor removed from parish after admitting misconduct from 30 years ago BY PETER KADUSHIN and ALISON GENDAR DAILY NEWS WRITERS Tuesday, December 4th 2007, 4:00 AM A Brooklyn monsignor has been yanked from his parish after admitting "inappropriate behavior" with up to five young people more than 30 years ago, authorities said. Msgr. George Zatarga, 65, admitted allegations of sexual misconduct when he was a relatively new priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn in the late 1970s, according to a letter the Bishop of Brooklyn Nicholas DiMarzio sent to Zatarga's flock. A law enforcement source said investigators also were checking...

COLORADO SPRINGS — Colorado Episcopal Bishop Robert O'Neill announced the removal from the priesthood today of renegade cleric the Rev. Don Armstrong of Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish. The Episcopal Diocese's Ecclesiastical Court found Armstrong guilty Sept. 28 of charges that he had stolen or mishandled $550,000 in parish funds. Armstrong and half or more of his congregation broke away from the Episcopal Church in March, citing theological differences, to become part of a Nigerian-sponsored mission called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. Months before the split, the Colorado diocese accused Armstrong of financial theft and mismanagement. This...

A 62-year-old former priest convicted of molestation and assaulting a Chronicle photographer was found dead early today, according to Sonoma County authorities. After receiving a call for a welfare check, police found Donald Wren Kimball dead in his Windsor home. There was no evidence of criminal activity, according to Sonoma County Sheriff's Sgt. Tim Duke. An autopsy is scheduled to determine the cause of death. The Roman Catholic priest was defrocked after he was convicted in 2002 of two counts of lewd conduct for fondling a 13-year-old girl at St. John's Church in Healdsburg. His conviction was later overturned when...

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- A Roman Catholic priest from the Springfield Diocese suspected of sexual abuse has been defrocked. Diocese officials said Richard Meehan was permanently dismissed from the priesthood on April 28 by Pope Benedict XVI. Church officials aren't providing details about who Meehan allegedly molested or how many people filed complaints. The diocese told him he could no longer work as a priest in 1994, and referred his case to the Vatican in 2002. Since he was suspended from his priestly duties, Meehan has been receiving a monthly stipend of about $1,200 from the diocese. Those payments will stop...

Equipped with gummy bears, lubricant and gay porn, a defrocked Pennsylvania priest was ready for sex with a boy but instead got busted by an undercover cop, police said. Thomas Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., was arraigned yesterday in First District Court in Hempstead on five counts of first-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of attempting to commit a criminal sexual act. Since September 2004, cops said, he engaged in online conversations with a detective who was posing as a teenager. "During that year, he was grooming the boy - or who he thought was a...

A former vice chancellor of the Boston Archdiocese and six other priests accused of molesting children have been defrocked by the Vatican, church officials announced Friday.In a statement, Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley expressed his "deepest sorrow for the grievous harm" done by Monsignor Frederick Ryan and the other Boston priests."The violations of childhood innocence, under the guise of priestly care, are a source of profound shame," O'Malley said.Ryan was one of the highest-ranking church officials to be accused of child molestation since the Boston sex scandal broke in 2002. He resigned that year after being accused of abusing two boys...

Disciplinary news from the Methodist case on the ex-Rev Shroud, a self-avowed, practicing lesbian who defied the denominational rules. First, she was convicted and defrocked by her annual conference. She appealed to the regional (Jurisdictional) committee and they overturned the conviction (and defrocking) on a process technicality. The denomination's highest court (The Judicial Council has just upheld the original conviction and defrocking. One other important case (The Johnson vs Viriginia Bishop Kammerer case) remains to be decided. Johnson was unfairly fired from his church by his radical, liberal bishop when he refused to accept into membership an unrepentant, self-avowed, non-celibate...

Defrocked molesters fall below the radar At a time of heightened national concern about the need to track sex offenders, the Catholic Church in America has begun cutting loose dozens - perhaps hundreds - of priests who have molested children. The church had already suspended the clerics after finding the child-abuse allegations against them to be credible. Now, as it defrocks them, expelling them from the priesthood, the men are quietly reentering civilian life with only the barest notice to the public, and no ongoing oversight by the church. Nor is law enforcement certain to be watching them.

The Vatican has defrocked the priest who was the first in Massachusetts convicted of sexual abuse more than two decades ago, the Boston Archdiocese said Friday.In 1984, Eugene O'Sullivan was sentenced to probation after he admitted sodomizing a 13-year-old altar boy. A condition of his sentence was that he not be allowed to work with children.But O'Sullivan was later assigned to four New Jersey parishes. He was recalled to Boston in 1992 after church officials learned of another allegation against him dating to his time in Massachusetts.The Vatican's action to defrock O'Sullivan means he may no longer function as a...

The Vatican has defrocked six priests from the Archdiocese of New York &#x2014; including one who paid for sex with an underage boy and another who was convicted of sodomizing a drunken teen, officials said yesterday. All the men lost their pensions and will not be allowed to perform priestly duties and were stripped of their collars by the Roman Catholic Church following allegations of sexual abuse. A seventh priest, who was also accused of sexual abuse, Rev. Alfred Gallant, of Orange County, was allowed to retain his title of priest and keep his pension, but not allowed to perform...

PHILADELPHIA -- Seven more priests removed from their duties by the Philadelphia Archdiocese in recent years for allegedly abusing minors have been defrocked by the Vatican, the archdiocese announced Thursday.Among them, the priests had served in about 35 parishes and five Catholic high schools across the Philadelphia region over the past four decades.The seven had been removed from their ministerial duties in the archdiocese years ago. The Vatican's decision to laicize, or permanently remove them, is the most serious action the Roman Catholic Church can take against a priest. They are barred from ever administering sacraments or serving as priests...

Defiant to the end, the former head of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, Irenaios, yesterday asked Israeli police to bring him 14 bodyguards after an ecclesiastical tribunal officially defrocked him, demoting him to the rank of a simple monk. Meanwhile, Irenaios’s aide Meletios — a former Arab archimandrite who was deposed earlier this week — called for a “religious intifada” against Greek Orthodox authorities and for a stop to Greek administration of the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s property.

Leaders of the Reformed Church in America suspended a New Jersey minister, ruling that he violated the denomination's teachings by officiating at his lesbian daughter's wedding. A majority of delegates voted Friday night to suspend the Rev Norman Kansfield from the ministry until he changes his views to fall in line with church doctrine. They also stripped him of his standing as a professor of theology in the RCA. Kansfield, 65, who has served in the church for 40 years, said the decision was "going to be very hard to deal with - my life has been the ministry". "The...

Schenectady, NY -- Leaders of the Reformed Church in America suspended a New Jersey minister Friday night, ruling that he violated the denomination's teachings by officiating at his lesbian daughter's wedding. A majority of delegates voted to suspend the Rev. Norman Kansfield from the ministry until he changes his views to fall in line with church doctrine. They also stripped him of his standing as a professor of theology in the RCA. Kansfield, 65, who has served in the church for 40 years, said the decision was "going to be very hard to deal with — my life has been...

(Boston - AP) — The Vatican has defrocked six priests from the Boston archdiocese who were accused of sexually abusing children.They include John Connell, Denis Conte, Peter Frost, John Hanlon, Richard Matte and Paul David White.The men may no longer act as priests, except to offer absolution to the dying.They are also no longer part of the archdiocese and are cut off from any financial support.Connell was accused in a civil suit of molesting a twelve-year-old boy while spending a week with him in a Florida hotel during the mid 1970's.In 1994, the archdiocese removed him as chaplain at St....

MANCHESTER — Ronald E. Corriveau, accused of molesting a teenage boy in Manchester in 1982 and possessing Internet pornography three years ago, is the first Roman Catholic diocesan priest in New Hampshire to be defrocked since the clergy sexual abuse scandal became public in early 2002, the diocese announced yesterday. The late Pope John Paul II made the decision to laicize Corriveau, 60, on March 21, less than two weeks before the Pontiff's death. "By virtue of this decree, Ronald Corriveau is no longer bound to the obligations of the sacred priesthood, has no faculties to act as a priest...