[Salvation]

Prayers for Father Joe.

[NYer]

With all the requests to help the victims of Katrina, please consider sending a donation to help Father with his legal needs.

[B Knotts]

This bishop sure seems to like suspending priests.

[marshmallow]

Amazing how authoritarian some bishops can be when they choose. Usually, they're out to lunch.

I seem to recall Loverde's name cropping up in relation to the priestly sex scandals also. If memory serves, he suspended a whistleblower who outed one or more miscreants. Fr. Haley, if memory serves.

[MudPuppy]

sad.
I was married at Holy Family in 1998. Most of our priests are devout and try very hard to follow their vocation. Sounds like this one is being abused for doing his job. Reminds me of the incident with Fr Haley....

We'll send what we can to the fund listed.

[Pyro7480]

What did the deacon do exactly?

[Antoninus]

Bishop Loverde seems to be doing his level best to destroy the previously orthodox diocese of Arlington, VA.

[Gerish]

The deacon’s wife and his daughter, who lives half a continent away and did not witness the incident, sent outraged letters to the bishop.

First, what exactly did the deacon do?

Second, the above line is a good argument against married priests. It seems this Bishop is more worried about how the deacon's family will react (lawsuit maybe), than finding out the truth. I am curious if there was a mention of some type of legal action in the letters sent by the wife and daughter.

[Convert from ECUSA]

Loverde shenanigans in our diocese - Ping!

[Siobhan]

This is so disgusting but I can believe it.

[PAR35]

In the current enviornment, I can think of only one allegation which would get a priest immediately suspended pending investigation. There seems to be a hint of such an allegation in this, "The wording of the bishop’s suspension repeats the uninvestigated allegations from the slanderous letter of the deacon’s daughter."

Now of what might the daughter accuse that the deacon and his wife did not?

I hope it turns out the priest is completely innocent, but because of the risk of lawsuit, the Bishop would have had to act if an allegation of that sort was made.

[ninenot]

Seems to me that Fr. Joe has canonical recourse--he should contact the St Joseph Foundation in San Antonio, TX if he wants to escalate a bit.

[jo kus]

Does anyone know how the deacon or his wife can sue the priest or the diocese? Which court is going to take on an ecclesiastical matter? Considering a deacon is meant to be a servant of the people, basically, a volunteer subject to authority, which court of law would see the case?

Regards

[markomalley]

Fr. Clark is a personal friend of mine. There's a lot of details I can't share with you, but he is confident of a positive outcome in this case. I'm sure he would be very thankful for your prayers and support. He is a very good, holy, and orthodox priest...the type that we need more of, particularly in the metro DC area.

I'll e-mail him a copy of this thread. I'm sure he will be happy to read all of your words of support. (I've also encouraged him to join FR...we could always use a good priest)

[Desdemona]

Suspend the priest? How about suspend the bishop.

[saradippity]

As I recall,you are from Hartford or thereabouts. Can you shed any more light on this Loverde character? I think he is a Category V disaster bishop.

My numerical rating scale for disaster bishops goes to a Category VI.

[Sloth]

I fail to understand why anyone would desire to be a part of such an organization.