Posted on 03/30/2006 7:47:33 AM PST by NYer
CINCINNATI -- The Vatican has removed from the priesthood a man accused of sexually abusing girls at a Catholic high school where he was chaplain.
Thomas Brunner, who resigned in 2003 as pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Troy, is permanently stripped of all clerical functions and privileges, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said Wednesday. Brunner had been on administrative leave, barred from functioning as a priest, because of the abuse accusations stemming from his time at Mount Notre Dame High in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Pope Benedict XVI approved Brunner's petition for what the church calls "laicization." Brunner signed documents requesting the action, the archdiocese said. When the action is imposed, it's called defrocking.
Brunner has an unpublished phone number and couldn't be reached for comment.
He is the second priest to be laicized this year in the Cincinnati archdiocese, and a third priest was defrocked last year. Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco said Vatican action is pending in cases involving eight other priests from the 19-county archdiocese.
The archdiocese pleaded no contest in 2003 to charges of failing to tell authorities about sex abuse allegations against priests.
Interesting, as bad as Brunner apparently is, he did the right thing in the end and admitted it.
If only all the guilty would take responsibility for their actions the wrongly accused would be able to get a fair hearing rather than being oppressed by their Diocese's
Can. 290 Sacred ordination once validly received never becomes invalid. A cleric, however, loses the clerical state:
1ƒ by a judgment of a court or an administrative decree, declaring the ordination invalid;
2ƒ by the penalty of dismissal lawfully imposed;
3ƒ by a rescript of the Apostolic See; this rescript, however, is granted to deacons only for grave reasons and to priests only for the gravest of reasons.
Can. 291 Apart from the cases mentioned in can. 290, n. 1, the loss of the clerical state does not carry with it a dispensation from the obligation of celibacy, which is granted solely by the Roman Pontiff.
Can. 292 A cleric who loses the clerical state in accordance with the law, loses thereby the rights that are proper to the clerical state and is no longer bound by any obligations of the clerical state, without prejudice to can. 291. He is prohibited from exercising the power of order, without prejudice to can. 976. He is automatically deprived of all offices and roles and of any delegated power.
Can. 293 A cleric who has lost the clerical state cannot be enrolled as a cleric again save by rescript of the Apostolic See.
And the purge continues.
I was wondering who is in charge of the Archdiocese? Is it a person or is it a group and how can one plead no contest? This is a legitimate question no bashing intended.
The archdiocese pleaded no contest in 2003 to charges of failing to tell authorities about sex abuse allegations against priests.
The Bishop is "in charge", and although appointed by the Pope, he is not exactly responsible to the Pope. Essentially, we see the individual bishops as receiving their authority directly from God. (I will concede that the manner in which many of them exercise their authority is less than ideal ... but then I, too, am a sinner.)
However, the Bishop of any diocese, even the smallest, has all sorts of folks working for him. In these United States, today, the Bishop and his diocese interact with the secular world in the manner of a corporation. Hence, some of the folks working for the Bishop include lawyers, who handle any interaction of the Diocese with the secular courts. Presumably, the lawyers advised the Bishop not to contest those charges, and the Bishop agreed. That's a prudential decision that, not being familiar with the facts of the matter, I can't really make any intelligent comments on.
If this doesn't answer your question, perhaps you could pose it differently?
I guess it threw me when it referred the Archdiocese as an entity, Rather then saying that some person pleaded no contest. My question is why did they not just plead guilty? Did they not know that the charges were true? To me it is kinda like a child getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar and when confronted with that fact they say I take the 5th.
I don't really understand "no contest" pleas, but I'm not a lawyer ...
The no contest is a legal way of saying I not pleading guilty and I'm not pleading not guilty but rather I not pleading at all, So let the courts decide based on the evidence presented. It's a weasel clause in my opinion.
The "American Catholic Church" will probably be glad to have him.
I don’t mean to sound ignorant but what is the point of bring up charges against dead people?
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