Showing posts with label Priest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Priest. Show all posts

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Catholic Priest Removed From San Dimas Church

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A Catholic priest who admitted having a sexual relationship with a high school girl more than 40 years ago was removed his position, and a high-ranking official who oversaw the background checks of priests resigned.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced Friday that the Rev. Martin P. O’Loghlen, who worked at Holy Name of Mary Church in San Dimas, was removed from any priestly activities.

The archdiocese said it was reacting to inquiries from a New York Times reporter researching an article about O’Loghlen.

The 74-year-old priest is accused of having a long-term sexual relationship with the teenage girl beginning in 1960, and seeking her forgiveness later, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Read More: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/02/12/catholic-priest-removed-from-san-dimas-church/

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Louisville couple claims retaliation from former church

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB Fox 41) -- A Louisville couple says they've been the victims of retaliation just days after filing a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Louisville.

Gary and Margie Weiter say they've been banned from helping their church after they complained the parish was hiding a priest accused of sexual abuse.

"It was horrible. It was horrible. He cried all night. Some people don't understand it but we've devoted our life to the church, to those people," said Gary and Margie Weiter, plaintiffs.

Gary and Margie Weiter claim they were fired from volunteering at St. Therese Church where Gary has run bingo for years.

Both said they received a hand-delivered letter Friday from Father Tony Olges.

"He said you are no longer allowed to volunteer or run the bingo at St. Therese," said Gary Weiter.

"I just want to know why? Why me? What did I do to deserve this? To hurt the people of the parish I just don't know why?" asked Margie Weiter.

"I've never seen retaliation like this, as long as I've been practicing law and that's been over 30 years," said Mikell Grafton, attorney.

Attorney Grafton represents the couple.

The notice came just one day after the couple sued the Archdiocese of Louisville and Father Olges, accusing them of hiding Father James Schook, a priest accused of sexual abuse, who had been removed from his previous parish.

The lawsuit claims Margie was fired from her bookkeeping job at the church after complaining that Schook was allowed to live in St. Therese's rectory, and was often left unsupervised.

The Weiters became uncomfortable with Schook's presence because Gary had been a victim of priest abuse in 1960s.

"Why was our church chosen to harbor out a sex abuser? I don't understand and no one has given me an answer," said Gary Weiter.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

More Anglican priests to join Catholic Church

BBC News

Seven Anglican priests and 300 members of six congregations are to join a new section of the Catholic Church, the Catholic Diocese of Brentwood says.

The move involves three parishes in Essex, and three in east London.

It is the largest influx to date into the Ordinariate, which Pope Benedict established for Church of England members unhappy over issues such as the ordination of women.

Three former Anglican bishops have been appointed to lead the Ordinariate.

Ordinariates allow Anglicans opposed to developments including women bishops, gay clergy and same-sex blessings to convert to Rome while maintaining some of their traditions.

Read More: http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2011/01/23/more-anglican-priests-to-join-catholic-church/

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Belgium extradites sex-abuse priest wanted in Canada

BRUSSELS — A convicted Belgian-born priest who faces complaints of sexual abuse in Canada was expelled Wednesday, sent back to Montreal when police discovered he had taken Canadian nationality and had lived illegally in Belgium for years.

Eric Dejaeger, 63, a Flemish priest who worked as a missionary with Inuits in the 1970s, was escorted by police on a 10:30 am (0930 GMT) flight from Brussels airport, and was to be handed over to Canadian authorities on landing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Katrien Jansseune said.

Dejaeger, who was sentenced in 1990 to five years behind bars for the rape of eight children before being released after 18 months, had returned to live in Belgium after nine new sets of victim allegations came forward in 1995.

He was living in Blanden, in northern Flanders, and escaped extradition following a 2001 Interpol arrest warrant because he retained Belgian nationality at the time.

Read More:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jBvtlNYNZ1nsi-1GKN7LFhLjUcvw?docId=CNG.39a3ec779b59aa2263adc5395de3d1b3.7d1

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Artist of the Week: Anachoronistic Freezedried Los Angeles Beatnik-Priest



With a copy of a scandalous cartoon satire of Genesis displayed on his coffee table, this masculine priest has a prison youth ministry in Los Angeles and "paints", occasionally earning $5000 a canvas for his efforts.

POMONA, Calif. — There's no steeple out front, no rows of pews inside, not even so much as a crucifix on display.[Really says it all]

Still, this cramped little art studio in the middle of what, until not very long ago, was a street with as many broken dreams as it has potholes, is the closest thing to paradise Father Bill Moore has found. It's the place where the 60-year-old Catholic priest serves God by creating abstract paintings that he sells by the hundreds.

No ordinary preacher, Father Bill, as he's known throughout Pomona's fledgling arts district, long ago discarded his clerical collar in favour of a painter's smock. Only on Sundays does he trade it for holy vestments to deliver mass at a local church or one of several detention facilities for youthful offenders.

All other times Moore is head of the Ministry of the Arts for the West Coast branch of his religious order, the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. His job is to serve God by painting whatever comes to mind.

"That's Bill's gift, his talent, and we have to support that," says Father Donal McCarthy, who is the order's West Coast provincial and Moore's superior. "When you've got a creative person, you shouldn't stifle that creativity."

Leaders of the order, founded more than 200 years ago in France, know of no other member whose only mission has been to paint. But then Moore, a child of the '60s who can quote the words of Jim Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Jesus Christ with equal facility, has been a barrier-breaker since he ignored his provincial's order his freshman year of college to study either philosophy or theology. He majored in art instead. [Willakers, it makes him peachy keen with the kids and stuff.]

"The next year, a letter came from the provincial saying all the students are now encouraged to major in subjects of their choice. I thought that was very cool," Moore recalls with a smile as he sits in the lobby of his modest studio sipping coffee. A copy of underground comic-book artist R. Crumb's "The Book of Genesis" sits on the coffee table and works by Japanese artist Kazumi Tanaka (a personal favourite) are displayed here and there.

Since early childhood, Moore says, he knew he had the calling - to be a painter. The call to be a priest came later.

"I was doing little abstract paintings when I was a little boy, like around eight, nine years old," Moore recalls.

"My grandmother would just think they were the greatest things," he continues with a laugh. "The rest of the members of my family, they were, ah, kind of more like art critics."

Not that the art world has been all that harsh on him. Moore's works, which are often compared to those of abstract expressionist Mark Rothko, sell for more than $5,000 apiece, and he has been the subject of frequent shows at galleries throughout the Southwest. Any profits he makes from those shows go directly to his order.

"His work, as abstract as it is, has a definite spiritual quality to it," says Fenton Moore, who is curating a Moore exhibition that opened Dec. 24 at the Galerie Zuger in Santa Fe, N.M. "It could be that it comes more from his heart than what you feel from other abstract artists. Or it could also be because he's just a very religious person."

Although he once worked in a realistic style, doing figures and landscapes, Moore decided a dozen years ago that abstract expressionism would be his language.

That has caused some consternation among his order, like the time he was commissioned to do the stained-glass windows for St. Anne's Church in Kaneohe, Hawaii, and proposed a series of abstract works.

"The pastor there said, 'That's not going to happen,"' Moore recalled with a laugh. So he reverted to a traditional style for that work, as he did for a recent commissioned painting of Father Damien, patron saint of Hawaii, who was a member of Moore's order when he went to live among the lepers of Hawaii's Molokai island in the 1800s.

But when he works in his studio, Moore approaches each new project with no specific plan. Working with acrylic paints, he lets his ideas flow spontaneously onto canvas, then adds bits of metal, glass or other discarded, seemingly worthless materials to each painting. They represent redemption, a central theme in his order's belief that God's love is unconditional.

It's that approach, combined with his intricate brush skills, that makes his art so appealing, says fellow painter A.S. Ashley.

"I think the hard contrasts between the light areas and the coloured fields are very striking and they draw you in," Ashley says. "And then, as you get closer, you see not only the textures but also some of the intimate details that exist within them."

Moore, who was ordained in 1975, spent much of his career as a traditional Catholic priest who happened to paint. That changed in 1998 when his superiors created the Ministry of the Arts.

Soon he had moved into a studio in a century-old building in this hardscrabble town 50 kilometres east of Los Angeles. He secluded himself in a rundown industrial neighbourhood that was just beginning to reinvent itself as an arts district.

He still lives there, with his cat, in a cramped loft behind his work space. For entertainment he occasionally tunes in an ancient TV that requires hanging a coat hanger on its rabbit-ear antenna to pull in a local news channel.

But he doesn't mind.

"I don't know what it is to be really wealthy, but I feel so rich," he says, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. "I get up in the morning and I do what I love to do."



http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gar43IyQQNoeGqZxafHMY4EoZGNA

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Increasing numbers of Traditionalist Clergy point to Restoration underway in France [Pastor in Valle]

This article on Pastor in Valle cites some of the stats for the declining number of priests in France and the increasing number of Traditional priests. He speculates that the number of Traditional seminarians would be greater if they had the benefit of Diocesan structures.

Asphyxia on its way

1. The number of French diocesan priests working in France is fewer than 9000. For a number of dioceses, (Digne, 25 priests, Nevers, 38, Auch, Saint-Claude, Gap, Digne, Viviers, Verdun, Pamiers, Langres, etc) in ten years time the number of priests in active ministry will be ten at the most. In Bishop Gueneley’s diocese of Langres, the most liberal of French dioceses, one frequently finds one sole priest for 60 churches.

2. The number of seminarians has now fallen below the mark of 750 (740 in 2008, and this number includes a good hundred seminarians from non-diocesan communities). Pamiers, Belfort, Agen, Perpignan, &c, have no seminarians.

3. The number of ordinations remains fewer than 100 (90 in 2009—Paris, which is one of the best situated, had 10, 2 for the Emmanuel Community; 7 are predicted for 2010, and 4 for 2011)

4. 120 vocations have been declared for the class beginning in 2009.

The conclusion is dramatic: a third of French dioceses will cease to exist but will have to regroup within the coming 15 years.

Yet the majority of bishops, above all Archbishop Vingt-Trois, do not despair. Despite everything, the Church remains visible; she remains alive despite appearences. Archbishop Vingt-Trois has given a marvellous example of ‘visibility’ which was heard on Radio Notre-Dame (interview of 5th November): in a parish without a priest, the laity got themselves together to say the Rosary in a village hall: there they also had the idea of cleaning the church to recite the rosary in; so, nothing is lost; this church will live again…

Entire article...