He wasn't slimed for talking about child abuse. He was suspended for publicly advocating heresy and trying to stir up a public campaign to support his views. That's why I posted what he actually said and what his archbishop actually said.
Had he merely brought out to light clerical sexual abuse or the like...and his bishop reacted in the way he did, the archbishop would have been wrong. However, that's not what happened, was it?
And that's where the LA Times distorted things.
"He was suspended for publicly advocating heresy..." For broaching the subject of the possibility of priests being once again (as it was in the primitive and even centuries later, early church, similar to how it is among some Orthodox) not prohibited from marrying? That you say is heresy? It's more like, "we don't want to hear it" coupled with some resentment the issue was raised in this otherwise ugly context.
There is a video too, where it is claimed he didn't openly publish the letter, that it was someone else in the hierarchy who leaked it, though granted that could be a little bit difficult to believe given the title.
However, that's not what happened, was it?
Typical. All else gets swept under the rug, for a guilty party has been found and named. The thing is, advocating marriage for priests is not itself heresy, for a celibate priesthood is more technically a regulation, compared to male-only priesthood being a dogma, leaving the possibility the RCC could change it's mind, if it wished. Which leaves him being punished as much for blending in the reports of sexual abuse of minors, and sexual allegations (that non-celibacy is as much the norm rather than the exception, among Ugandan priests) and such things becoming public knowledge, regardless of WHAT ELSE is said in lawyerly fashion.
If all he had done was speak openly that the Latin church should reconsider marriage for priests, I seriously doubt he would be banished for "heresy".
Married priest were once as much the norm, rather than the exception. Many popes were themselves married.
In the scripture, bishops were advised to "be the husband of one wife", were they not? (Shall I bring the citation?) Nor were these bishops then and there required to forego all conjugal relations.
I Corinthians 7: 5-8
Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.
Though Paul advocated being single and celibate such as he was, was desirous, it was not mandated until many centuries later, and with the Orthodox not at all strictly required(?) save for bishops themselves to be "continent". That such ideas towards that word developed the way they did, is another story..and needless to say, compared to the scriptures themselves, the demand for sexual purity to be extended to no lawful conjugal relations whatsoever, didn't pick up steam until around the fourth century, much as many other Romanisms arising around then, that can be found controversial or otherwise problematic...
It is hardly heresy to now talk about it. Unless causing embarrassment is itself "heresy".
Get the charges correct. It's becoming obvious the Ugandan bishop did not.
He could re-word his own complaint to focus upon bring ill-repute? Aah, but that would bring the spotlight back upon the allegations themselves, wouldn't it? It's so much easier to just call the troublesome priest a heretic and be done with it.