Posted on 04/29/2011 4:06:03 PM PDT by Gamecock
Full title: Priest stole $1m from church for male escorts.... and designer clothes… but won't have to pay it back and could serve again
A Catholic priest who stole more than $1 million in church money and spent it on male escorts, Armani clothes and nights out at gay bars has been jailed for three years.
But the priest from Connecticut could be allowed to continue serving as a priest after he has served his sentence, according to his former church.
Father Kevin Gray, 65, the former pastor of the Sacred Heart Parish, Waterbury, was sentenced to prison on Wednesday. He had entered a plea of no contest.
He had used the money to pay for a lavish lifestyle, which included owning a secret flat in New York, which he shared with a man who he paid to go to Harvard University.
Prosecutors said Gray will not have to pay back the money because the Diocese of Hartford did not ask for restitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The peak of the Catholic Church in terms of unity, devotion, and political influence, lasted from roughly the end of WWI until the 2nd Vatican Council. America in general has since grown more secular (in terms of religious devotion), but this secularization is particularly pronounced on ancestral "Catholics" in the northeast and upper Midwest.
The Apostles and the other disciples were all pretty corporal beings, as Peter found when he tried to walk on water. All of the twelve except John suffered bloody deaths. None of the major Reformers conceived of the Church as a ghostly institution. Luther was indeed trying to reform the visible Church, and led a revolution against the papacy and the empire that succeeded only because he had the helps of the German princes. Calvin was the inspiration of the Huguenot movement in his native France who was to convert the kingdom by converting the king. Calivin was in correspondance with Archbishop Cranmer and with evangelical Poles, stipulating that he had nothing against bishops so long as they had the right theology. Calvin was at one anti-Catholic and catholic. He actually thought that his teachings were an expression of true Christianity, the ones that should be taught everywhere. He was familiar with the teachings of the Church Fathers, Augustine above all, and did not deny a materiallength with the early church. He just rejected the authority of the papacy and the espiscopate as We Catholic understand it. The Church is a human as well as a divine institution. The only spiritual Church consists of the souls of the faithful departed.
Well like Will Rogers, who said;I am a member of no organized political party, I am a democrat.", when you say that you belong to no organized church you must be of the Baptist ilk, deny it all you like the facts are the facts.
exactly the reason I left the church! Oh, and of course all those child molestations and all the cover ups that followedWhen you were a Catholic, did you believe the Eucharist was the Real Presence of Christ?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
How remarkably stupid!
The horror!
LOL! You're a freak.
“When you were a Catholic, did you believe the Eucharist was the Real Presence of Christ?”
Exactly. If the Eucharist is what the Church says it is, then separating yourself from it because of the odious actions of Men is just what the Enemy wants. “I would have stayed, but my bishop is scumbag” doesn’t make much sense.
Freegards
I'm afraid that, once again, the classics comix view of Catholic doctrine is driving out the real deal.
In the 13th - 14th century it was acknowledged that 'the Greeks' who were not in Communion with the Holy See had a church with valid sacraments. That simply could not coexist with a teaching that only Catholics (those in communion with the Holy See) could get into heaven.
Again,the conceptual hurdle which it seems some have difficulty jumping is that we really think there is One Church. So when we speak of the Catholic Church, we do not view it as one denomination among many,except that it's the correct one and all those others are in deep doo-doo.
Neither do we think that all those others are "just as good as" the group in communion with the Holy See.
The truncated or eviscerated history which so many of us learn in school and the limited vision of our teachers who think that Plato, Aristotle etc could have no REAL relevance to the way we moderns think really has done the devil's work. Conversation becomes almost impossible because the variety of ways to approach a difference has been unnaturally limited.
Now try this. PLEASE, you may consider that it is wrong or even offensive, but try to hold the emotions back long enough to grasp the concept itself.
What is bread? In one sense it is something you have when you mix wheat flour and water( and yeast) and then bake the resulting paste.
Is it bread if oil and honey are added? Ditto with, say raisins and orange peel? Clearly if too much of those things is added, it is no longer bread, but some do not affect its "breadness" though they compromise or alter it.
Is it bread if sawdust is added? Again, a little sawdust won't make it impossible for the product to nourish. But it will compromise it, while too much sawdust will make it no longer bread in any meaningful sense.
So, you could say that we feelthy papists view those in Communion with the Holy See to be bread of pure wheat and all the rest. But other ecclesial assemblies are like bread in which some edible but non-nutritious substance has been mixed. It' still bread, it will contribute to the maintenance of life. Its breadness has been compromised, you might even say diluted, but you will not die if you eat it, and it will even help you live.
We see an important difference between the 16th century and other times when a BIG part of the motivation of becoming a non-Catholic was the idea that the Catholic Church was in no way a true church, and the motivationforbeing a Protestant these days. Cranmer and Henry VIII were not cradle Anglicans, Luther was not a cradle Lutheran, nor was Calvina cradle Calvinist.
The place where they "learned Christ" was not a building and community associated with a "denomination" in the modern sense. So the moral "object" is schism is not a part of one's being a Baptist or Mennonite or whatever. There is not anything that could be reasonably be construed as a choice to "leave the Church"in 99 44/100ths of such folks.
So we hold them to be eating a kind of bread, and to be nourished. They have not intentionally rejected pure bread for adulterated bread,which is perverse. And, at least by Baptism, if nothing else, they are indeed part of the One, Holy, Catholic,and Apostolic Church. That is why on Easter we did not baptize anyone with good evidence that he had been baptized with water and a Trinitarian formula.
So,IMHO,we cannot fairly be construed as saying that one has to join the Catholic Church in the modern sense of joining the "denomination".
I pinged some Catholics not to have them jump on you, but to have them jump on ME if my account is wrong.
Make him live in poverty after he gets out (I assume he did not take a vow of poverty), make him minister to the lepers or something like Father Damien used to. Get him way out of the range of temptation and let him lead a dry, dry, contemplative life. We don’t need priests bad enough to let this guy back into the diocesan machinery.
“as opposed to the protestant way of: don’t like the message start a new church, don’t like the music director start a rumor that they drink in secret, don’t like the pastors wife, have one of the little tramps start hitting on him. Yeah you guys are all so pious and holy, makes me sick to think I used to be one of you and glad i went back to the Catholic Church. “
Lol.... I’m thinking you probably need to talk your anger over with your priest. He could probably help you with it.
“They also get really upset when you ask them why there is a white baptist church on one corner and on the next one there is an African American one?”
I think you should state exactly what you mean. If you think there is a conclusion to be drawn - draw it yourself, don’t be scared. Say it.
If you are too afraid to draw your own conclusion in the light of day, then why post something like this?
Now, why don’t you state clearly why you think this is so, and why it makes you feel better about your chosen religion, and how it makes you a better person and Christian?
Sorry slick, I was baptized as an infant and Baptists are organized. That’s two strikes against your assumption.
I live in a very small town, we have 43 protestant churches (Most are different flavors of Baptist) and 1 Catholic Church. Tough to argue with facts just resort to ad hom attacks.
Well, he stated “they” get upset when asked about it. Now you’re asking him to say why “they” get upset? Wouldn’t “they”, the ones who get upset, be the ones to ask?
ROFLMAO. Yeah you keep telling yourself that. As far as your current affiliation did they recognize your infant baptism?
Me? I am jsut asking an innocent question. I have never been to a segregated Catholic Church. Why does a simple question get you so angry?
“Me? I am jsut asking an innocent question. I have never been to a segregated Catholic Church. Why does a simple question get you so angry?”
No you aren’t asking an innocent question. You are asking a question with an implied answer, which you are unwilling to elaborate upon, because you are afraid to elaborate.
My question is direct, and no emotion should be implied.
You are spineless if you don’t make your point.
So I take it the question is then withdrawn?
“I live in a very small town, we have 43 protestant churches (Most are different flavors of Baptist) and 1 Catholic Church. Tough to argue with facts just resort to ad hom attacks.”
You implied that every Protestant church is like Peyton Place, because that is what you experienced at your church when you considered yourself Protestant.
That is a personal fault of yours which you should seek to redress. I suggested your priest, nearly all of whom would be very likely to guide you to reach a different conclusion than the one you’ve chosen.
So your post is the one with unsubstantiated attacks.
You’ll also note that I have not attacked you, nor your church, just your line of reasoning. In fact, I’m happy for you that you’ve found a church that suits you, and that you think that your church is immune from the same human failings that you saw in another church.
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