Norfolk Police Cite Priest for Lewdness at City Park

The Virginian Pilot ^ | 12/02/02 | Matthew Roy and Steven Vegh

[pgkdan]

Norfolk Police Cite Priest for ''Lewdness'' at City Park

By MATTHEW ROY AND STEVEN G. VEGH,
The Virginian-Pilot
© December 3, 2002
Last updated 11:12 PM Dec. 2

NORFOLK -- A Roman Catholic priest was charged last week with a misdemeanor count of frequenting a public park for ``lewdness,'' police said Monday night.

The Rev. Wayne Ball, pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in West Ocean View, was issued a summons for a future date in General District Court, police said.

Ball has not been suspended or relieved of his duties as a parish priest. He did, through an attorney, notify the Diocese of Richmond.

Because the alleged incident did not involve children, the diocesan Review Board -- formed earlier this year to investigate suspected child sexual abuse by clergy -- will not get involved, said The Rev. Pasquale Apuzzo, spokesman for the diocese.

A police officer wrote the summons around 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving, in Northside Park, in the 8400 block of Tidewater Drive.

Police said Ball was charged with violating a city ordinance that makes it a misdemeanor to frequent any ``bawdy place,'' defined in the code as somewhere with or without buildings that ``. . . is used for lewdness, assignation or prostitution.''

Police released no details of Ball's arrest. Police spokesman Chris Amos said he did not know if any others were charged with the offense that evening.

Ball could not be reached at his home for comment. His lawyer, George A. Neskis, declined to comment on the charge.

Church officials learned about the incident on Monday when a lawyer whom Ball consulted called the Rev. Thomas J. Caroluzza, who is Bishop Walter F. Sullivan's representative in eastern Virginia.

``Eventually, Father Wayne called me back and told me that he'd suffered from depression in the past,'' Caroluzza said. The symptoms of depression, which had been gone for the past seven years, recently began returning.

Ball would see a mental-health professional today, Apuzzo said.

According to a church Web site, Ball is a native of Danville and was ordained a priest in 1989.

He has been assigned to churches in Richmond and Roanoke and studied Canon Law in Rome. He was assigned to Holy Trinity in 2000. Ball initiated Spanish-language Masses there and in other churches where he served.

[pgkdan]

It was reported today that he was arrested with another man, in a car with whom he was engaged in a lewd act. The Bishop says that there will be no further action on this by the diocese and that he beleieves in forgiveness. So next Sunday it's Fr. Wayne, on the altar...business as usual.

I've never been so disgusted, let down and humiliated by an organization to which I've been affiliated with in all my life. Bishop Sullivan is making a mockery of the sacrament of Holy Orders. His service this year has been a disaster to this diocese.

Who would have believed, 20 years agao that a priest ccould get arrested for giving a b.j. in a public park and his bishop would simply shrug his shoulders on TV, as Sullivan did today, and say 'no big deal"? It's emabrrassing to have a Priest of my Church arrested in this fashion...it's humiliating and infuriating to have the bishop shrug it off.

[pgkdan]

ping

[pgkdan]

ping

[Salvation]

**Bishop Sullivan is making a mockery of the sacrament of Holy Orders. His service this year has been a disaster to this diocese.**

It sounds as if you need a new Bishop there. Right?

[cherry]

its pathetic isn't it?

I maintain, and its only MY opinion, is that homosexuality in the priesthood is the driving force in all the scandals....

if a priest or Bishop or Cardinal is homosexual, he is certainly not going to be too keen in revealing or punishing other priests who are pedophiles...

and the exact relationship between pedophilia with adolescent boys, or teenage boys, and homosexual behavior is a very cloudy one, although I have had a gay man and Aids activist say that the gay community is very much into younger and leaner....."lookism" is worse in the gay community than in the straight community...

but if nothing else, aren't priests supposed to be celebrate?.....

sure forgive sins...but then go forth and sin no more....

I keep thinking that all this is a cross to bear....something that will either prove we are true Catholics who help restore our Church , or that we are just cut and run to the quickest fix...

[MHGinTN]

And when the laity speak out forcefully on these perversions to the Church, then the Church will start to change ... or so it would be hoped, but I'm not encouraged that either will happen.

[saradippity]

Thanks for the depressing post,our bishop out here is in more trouble today too.I guess I am going to do what I haven't wanted to do and that is withold all money from collections.I cut my contributions in half over the last three years but have felt it necessary to give financial support to "keep the lights on",so to speak. I thought it gave me a little voice,at least in the two parishes I attended.But I think they get money from their "masters",and will continue to get it until the Church is destroyed. I guess they don't believe in God,in a way it's kind of sad,they have absolutely nothing.

Maybe I will also start writing nasty little notes to some of our "lavender" queens,telling them how I get sick to my stomach as they flounce around and tread ever so carefully around sin and wax so eloquently about hospitality. Three obviously gay priests all gave the same sermon/lecture on Lot and Sodom. They said the reason God destroyed Sodom was because the townspeople were not hospitable to the strangers.

I am sick of the entire Amchurch and their staff of imposter priests and bishops and cardinals,most of whom are charismatic and charming and homosexual and marxists or masons.

[cherry]

"I am sick of the entire Amchurch and their staff of imposter priests and bishops and cardinals,most of whom are charismatic and charming and homosexual and marxists or masons."

please, don't hold back......lol

try not to be discouraged....I'm not....in fact, all this stuff coming out reaffirms everything that we conservative voting Catholics have felt deep in our hearts for a long time....

that much of what our "modern " church officials have been supporting....the rights of "gays" and the rights of "lesbians" and the rights of "immigrants" and the rights of the "poor" and the labor unions and yadda, yadda, yadda....it has all been a gigantic leftist fraud by some of these very same leftist priests and bishops...

and they have no credibiltiy at all because we now know that a good group of them have been involved in perversions, and protecting those perversions...

[pgkdan]

It sounds as if you need a new Bishop there. Right?

We need about 111 new bishops in America. If I remember correctly that's the number of bishops involved in covering homo-sex scandals by their priests. Thankfully for the Diocese of Richmond our esteemed leader has already submitted his retirement to the Holy Father and it's been accepted effective June 2003. I can't wait.

[ArrogantBustard]

Your new Bishop will have his work cut out for him. Uncle Wally has come as close to destroying the Diocese of Richmond as malign neglect can. I spent several long years there, and still occasionally visit. The slovenly manner in which the Mass is offered, and the utter inanity of the preaching never ceases to disedify me. There are bright spots (St. Patrick's in Lexington, for example) but they are rare. I fear that our Bishop Loverde will turn Arlington into a mirror image of the Dreadful Diocese of Richmond.

[dighton]

``Eventually, Father Wayne called me back and told me that he'd suffered from depression in the past,'' Caroluzza said.

Call me dense if you like, but I can't connect the dots between depression and "lewdness."

[ArrogantBustard]

They don't say which seminary he graduated from. I'd rather like to know. I can guess, but that's really pointless. Anybody know?

[aculeus]

Eventually, Father Wayne called me back and told me that he'd suffered from depression in the past,'' Caroluzza said.

Call me dense if you like, but I can't connect the dots between depression and "lewdness."

Call me Densa but when did priests start to refer to each other as "Father Wayne" or (predictably) "Father Bruce"?

[AxelPaulsenJr]

but if nothing else, aren't priests supposed to be celebrate?.....

I think that is the problem, he was celebrating instead of being celebate.

[sinkspur]

Call me dense if you like, but I can't connect the dots between depression and "lewdness."

You're depressed after getting caught being "lewd."

[pgkdan]

Your new Bishop will have his work cut out for him. Uncle Wally has come as close to destroying the Diocese of Richmond as malign neglect can. I spent several long years there, and still occasionally visit

You're right, he will have one heck of a mess to clean up. We've been hit with one scandal after another down here in Tidewater for the last several months. I hope you're wrong about Loverde, but the news lately hasn't been good.

[saradippity]

Thanks Cherry.I too,am optimistic about the eventual outcome of this mess.But that doesn't diminish my disgust with these prevaricating pederast priests,bishops and cardinals.

Somewhere in the recesses of my heart,I believe this scandal can be used to shed a light on the moral morass that is blanketing this country currently.I just can't figure out how to focus that light on the entire problem in a way that results in measures that can effect a turnaround in the country.

Doesn't it strike you as the height of irony that in Boston,of all places,the Globe pounds away at the Church on a daily basis while Summers,the President of Harvard,makes a public apology for the harshness with which a little group of homosexuals were treated in 1920? The little group was not "closeted",said to cause scandal to the University and expelled.

Yes, the Globe pounds away at the scandal,which indeed is unbelieveable and filthy,nasty and yet I didn't read about any fury when Massachussetts provided a mandatory "sexual training" class for teachers to implement in public schools.The sessions were secretive and the man who taped them and blew the whistle was subject to ridicule and worse.

As far as I now,the family that is suing Namblia,because their 7 or 8 year old son was raped and murdered by two homosexuals who had Namblia material in their car has not gotten sympathetic,constant coverage of that ugly situation. That took place in or around Boston,where is the Globe,on that one?

And,what about Christopher Reardon,that Catholic youth minister,who last year was convicted of many sexual assaults and abuses on young boys.He even took pictures in the parish offices.I didn't see them going after the homosexual pastor,who probably knew about it and protected him.Why not?If the press is to be of any value,they certainly should go after root causes,shouldn't they?

I am relying on my memory about these incidents but it seems to me,to be very strange that so many incredibly evil things have occurred in the recent past,that have a great bearing on what is happening in the Church and yet very little mind was paid to any of this.While it is sure that an institution that claims it was established by the Son of God is far more culpable than groups who are "enlightened",or the so called "unwashed masses" there is something more than meets the eye on this.

Cherry,are you from Boston? Edreform,do you have any links to what I am talking about?AmericanColleen,do you have any thoughts,you're from Boston.Also do you have that limerick about Boston,the home of the bean and the cod?If you have the verses would you send it to me,please?

[general_re]

Call me Densa but when did priests start to refer to each other as "Father Wayne" or (predictably) "Father Bruce"?

Father Bruce Wayne? And his secret identity, "Buttman"?

[csvset]

In other news related to Norfolk's Parks, Norfolk City Council maintains ban on carrying guns in parks

[marshmallow]

Ball would see a mental-health professional today, Apuzzo said.

The problem in a nutshell.

The devil laughs at these secular "professionals". Sin can be analyzed to the nth degree and talked and discussed to death but it is overcome only by the grace of God.

As St. Paul says, "What a wretch I am. I do, not the good which I intend, but the evil which I do not intend. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

One can impress upon the mind the need to behave in a certain way, but weak human nature listeneth not, when temptation beckons.

A complete waste of both the priest's and shrink's time.