you were dealing with an individual, who with the cooperation of your wife, had an affair.....what that has to do with the church is beyond me...the church was his place of employment.....if he had worked for G.M. would you forever drive a Ford???
“...if he had worked for G.M. would you forever drive a Ford?”
Cut the man some slack. If this happened to you, what would you do and how would you react? And if the transgressor was the local public face of G.M., it would be indeed to be expected that Ford’s business would skyrocket with the G.M. rep’s transgressions in the community. In this case it was far worse, as you can imagine.
The responsibilities of a priest are far greater, requiring not just an employment contract, but a vow to God, and there’s no higher judge. Even without a scandal, far from the case here, priests renouncing their vows were not to live within a specified radius of their former parishes, something like 50 miles, if memory serves.
Forgiveness can’t be demanded, especially third-hand. And the one category of people that can’t be humanly forgiven are the unrepentant, as far as I know. I got the impression that this former priest and ex-wife weren’t repentant.