Defrocked priest performs baptism

Newsday ^ | October 17, 2005

[NYer]

PHILADELPHIA - A former Philadelphia-area priest accused of abusing more than a dozen girls and taking an 11-year-old he had raped for an abortion performed a baptism this summer weeks after he was defrocked.

Nicholas V. Cudemo performed the baptism at Christ the King Church in Haddonfield, N.J., on July 10, Camden diocese officials confirmed.

A recent Philadelphia grand jury report found that Cudemo had sexual relationships with girls from Catholic schools where he taught from the 1960s to the 1980s, molesting one girl in the confessional and invoking God to seduce the youngsters. The report focused on abusive priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

[Appalled but Not Surprised]

Why do you think they HAD those confessionals in the first place? Hanky panky, even in the Confessional, is as old as Eve.

[Coleus]

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Haddonfield Church Angry Defrocked Priest Performed Baptism

[Coleus]

A report by the Philadelphia district attorney said Mr. Cudemo had sexual relationships with girls that he taught at Catholic schools from the 1960s to the 1980s. In one case, prosecutors say, he arranged an abortion for an 11-year-old who became pregnant.

[Cicero]

The position of the Catholic Church is that anyone can perform a baptism. You don't need to be in Holy Orders. For disciplinary reasons, baptism is supposed to be done in a church by a priest, so that proper records can be kept.

The proper exception would be an emergency in which the person might not otherwise receive baptism before risk of death. But even if there is no emergency, the baptism would still be valid if properly performed. The two things necessary for this sacrament are water, and the words, "I baptize you [name] in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

If there is any doubt that a proper baptism was performed, a provisional baptism should be performed afterward.

[Cicero]

Confessional boxes did not come into use until the sixteenth century in Rome, under the direction of St. Charles Borromeo, and in most countries not until the middle of the seventeenth century. They were largely a response to the Reformation, and to Protestant accusations that Catholic priests were misbehaving with female penitents, what you might call the propaganda wars of the time.

The original directions for designing a confessional specified that it should have a screen with holes in it that you could talk through, but that the holes should be small enough to prevent anyone from poking a little finger through them.

[Clemenza]

Nicholas V. Cudemo performed the baptism at Christ the King Church in Haddonfield, N.J.,

Consider yourself lucky he isn't a co-religionist, as this would probably be your church.

[RobbyS]

That's why they designed confessional boxes in the first place! One of the counterreformation reforms that the spirit-of-V2_ guys did away with.

[It's me]

But, which way is better?
Or "safer" for that matter?

[RobbyS]

You need to look at confessional boxes. Not much room for manuever. The "face-to-face" on the other hand is a room with the door shut.

[afraidfortherepublic]

The link does not work. Is this for real???

If so, this is one of the most disgusting stories I have ever heard.

[It's me]

That was exactly my point.

We need to go back to the confessional boxes where the priest has his own door to his own seat and the penitant has his own door to his own kneeler and nothing else!!

NO room for anything but a confession.

[AbeKrieger]

Consider yourself lucky he isn't a co-religionist, as this would probably be your church.

I'm alright, I wasn't in the market for any baptisms anyway.

[Palladin]

Now they'll have to get someone to perform an exorcism on that poor little baby!

[VermiciousKnid]

I should think the old-style confessional is safer...there's not too much wiggle room in there, whereas the chatting rooms---OOPS!---I mean the new reconciliation rooms---have lots of space.

As for me, well...if there ain't no box, I don't go. Have to drive miles and miles and miles away to find a decent confessional these days.

Regards,

[livius]

There used to be monastic jails (or "penitentiaries") for priests and religious, who were sent there to live very harsh lives and repent. I knew a European priest who had been sent to one in his home country in the early 60's after he had been seen walking unaccompanied on the street with a woman and there had been rumors - accurate, alas - about his dealings with women parishioners. He said it was a horrible experience and he had never wanted to go back there, and he actually did clean up his behavior. (Well, until they closed the penitentiaries after VatII and went to the therapeutic model...)