Posted on 10/13/2002 9:50:53 AM PDT by Sonar5
I Personally know this family. They are of the highest Integrity, The dad is a Dentist and a Parish School Board Member, and their children have been EXPELLED from the Parochial School. Please keep them in your prayers during this difficult time, and help spread the word. Thanks You.
If You would like to let the Church know your opinion, you can contact them here:
stmary@smip.org
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This Appeared in The Herald News in Joliet & Plainfield, Illinois. Plainfield is a town devastated by a Tornado in 1990. It also appeared in a Newscast at 5:30 and 10:00 Pm Saturday, October 12, 2002, on CBS 2 Chicago.
From: http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/top/j12stmary.htm
By Ted Slowik STAFF WRITER
PLAINFIELD -- The pastor of St. Mary Immaculate Church kicked a family out of his parish and expelled two children from the elementary school because the parents told police a youth minister allegedly took photographs after making their son wear panty hose.
The Rev. Anthony A. Nugent told the parents they were no longer welcome in the parish because they violated a parental code of conduct by filing a police report, said Annalisa Gianni. Her husband, Daniel, runs a dental practice in Plainfield and served on St. Mary's school board.
Their 13-year-old son and about 60 other eighth-graders in a Confirmation class attended a six-hour retreat Sunday at Marian Lake off Drauden Road. The youths were given oven mitts and told to put on women's panty hose over their clothes as part of a team-building exercise, said Mark Eiting, Plainfield's deputy police chief.
Several boys were reluctant to participate, especially because photographs were taken of the hosiery-clad youths.
"Children were dressed up in outfits, pictures were being taken, and the kids didn't want to do it," Eiting said. "In the environment we're in right now, people are a little concerned."
With thousands of adults this year reporting that Roman Catholic priests sexually molested them years ago, many parents thought retreat organizers selected an inappropriate exercise, Annalisa Gianni said. The Giannis learned of the incident when a concerned parent called Daniel because he was a school board member.
Annalisa Gianni said the couple repeatedly tried to contact Nugent and the director of youth ministry, Rich Curran, who supervised the retreat, but received no response. They only turned to police because they couldn't get any answers from the parish, she said.
"We thought what we were doing was right," Gianni said.
But after the incident was reported, Nugent met with the couple and told them they violated parish procedures by contacting police, Gianni said. Nugent then told them that Friday would be the last day at St. Mary's for their eighth-grade and first-grade sons, Gianni said.
"(Nugent) is giving us no option," she said. "Our kids are being hurt because of this."
Nugent did not reply to numerous requests seeking comment this week, and Curran did not respond to messages left on Friday.
Curran told the eighth-graders that the digital pictures of the youths wearing panty hose would be posted on the parish's youth ministry Web site, Gianni said. Another parent said she thought the youths were subjected to an inappropriate and embarrassing activity.
"How degrading and demeaning, especially in light of what's going on in the church right now," said the parent, who asked that her name not be used. "What if that child decides to run for public office later and these photos turn up?"
Gianni said she appealed to Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch, who told her he would stand by the pastor's decision.
"The pastor is the appropriate person to talk to because this happened at the parish level," said Sister Judith Davies, diocesan chancellor and chief spokesperson.
The Giannis are not the only family in the diocese to have their children expelled by a pastor this year. In June, Bill and Marianne Bruss sued the diocese, Imesch and the Rev. Guy Vaccaro, pastor of St. John the Baptist parish in Winfield. Vaccaro told the couple that their two children could no longer attend the parish elementary school because the parents did not attend weekly Mass at St. John's, though they went to a different church.
"Persecuting these children is ridiculous," Marianne Bruss said Friday. "Whatever happened to freedom of speech? What happened to due process? This is fascism."
In their lawsuit, which is pending in DuPage County, the Brusses contend that the real reason their children were expelled was because the parents publicly criticized Vaccaro for instituting a controversial tithing policy, similar to one proposed at St. Mary Immaculate in Plainfield.
Ted Slowik can be reached at (815) 729-6053 or via e-mail at tslowik@scn1.com.
I was raised in several Catholic parishes and don't remember ever seeing that rule.
hey - they're playing our song!
This is to bizarre, some where...... the facts are misrepresented.
And why was this not posted in front page news or religious section?
I don't either, and yes I understand there are problems with the church these days .. but something also tells me there must be more to this story
Like why sign up with one church and yet attend mass at another??
If there were a porn ring or pedophile why would they advertise their illness and crime on the PARISH web site?
Some of the facts here are OFF.
This is out of the Church's hands this is now a obvious violatile crime.
This story is missing some facts.
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