Posted on 07/18/2003 6:37:15 AM PDT by NYer
A family that's grieving is very angry over their loved one's final hours. A priest came in to administer last rites, but the family says when he got into an argument with the dying man he refused to perform the sacrament.
Lauren DeFranco reports from Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola.
Charles Miller died of leukemia here on his 67th birthday, and in the end it was his parish priest who rushed to his bedside to administer the last rites just in the nick of time.
But according to Miller's family, he suffered more than any dying man should, because the chaplain refused to fulfill his duty.
Cheryl Bartges, Daughter: "I think it's a case of abuse. A different type of priest abuse."
That's how Cheryl Bartges describes what happened to her father, when he turned to a chaplain with the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Like most devout Catholics, Miller was seeking the final sacraments before passing away.
Cheryl Bartges: "I looked in and he was hysterically crying, he was crying at that point. So I went right in and (the father) said 'If you could give us a few more minutes.' So we left."
According to Bartges, her father's encounter with the priest left a dying man in a state of turmoil. She says Miller was a devoted family man, and a devout Catholic who lead an exemplary life.
But it is Bartges' belief that it was her father's dissatisfaction with the church's handling of the sex abuse scandal that ultimately lead to those contentious moments before his death.
Cheryl Bartges: "If my father not agreeing on how maybe the church was responding to it upset (the chaplain) I don't know. But all we know is he denied my father the sacraments."
A spokesman for the Diocese of Rockville Centre declined to comment on camera, but released the following statement.
"In response to the family's complaint, the priest in question was relieved of his ministry as soon as was feasible and asked to return to his home diocese in Nigeria."
The chaplain could not be reached for comment, but hospital sources tell us he had been reprimanded in the past.
As a result of this case, hospital officials will now interview candidates for the position of chaplain, rather than having them assigned by the diocese.
I am convinced that there is some sort of abuse contest going on amongst the bishops in NY state. This, however, extends abuse well beyond the imaginable.
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The cultural differences are troubling enough, but arrogance like this would make me think twice about importing Nigerians to minister in American Catholic dioceses.
I don't believe I've EVER heard of a priest refusing a dying person the last rites.
This priest should be forcibly laicized. He's a disgrace.
I think we may have a case of an unfit individual, rather than a pattern.
My parents' parish had a Nigerian priest for two years and he was a nice, unassuming, devout man. As a homilist, though, I have to say that his impressive reading knowledge of English far outpaced his ability to pronounce it intelligibly.
I agree that importing priests is not a long term solution to the vocation problem.
This priest should be forcibly laicized. He's a disgrace.
Amen to that. Denying someone Viaticum on his deathbed is just petty and cruel.
The cultural difference is that priests from the Third World have little or no patience for the liberal apostasy polluting the Church in the West.
The liberals won't come out and say, "We don't want a bunch of stupid (fill in ethnic slur) coming here telling us what to do." But it's exactly what they're thinking.
That impatience, apparently, includes denying a dying man the last sacraments because he got his back up over some comments about the sexual abuse situation.
We don't need that kind of priest anywhere in the Catholic Church.
You could find this sort of pettiness among priests of any ethnic background.
Why does the notion of bringing priests from the former mission countries disturb you?
We don't need men who can barely speak English attempting to minister in a large suburban American parish. We have a young Hispanic priest from Mexico who has to read every word of his homilies, cannot speak extemporaneously except to school children, and will not take the initiative in any situation. He's scared to death of living his life!
Now, maybe he'll grow out of this, but meanwhile he's a warm body dispensing the sacraments, and very little more.
Shuffling priests around is the Church's way to put off having to address the shortage of priests in the West. Let's hold the Church together with glue and baling wire, rather than discuss how to respond to what is quickly becoming a crisis.
This paragraph is a perfect segue into the rest of this thread.
You'll sing your 'Married priests and a lay-run Church now' theme, the radtrads will join in with 'Get rid of Vatican II and bring back the Old Mass' theme, some others will sing 'Springtime is just around the corner,' all in perfect disharmony.
All too predictable.
The "evidence" in this case is far from flimsy. The diocese sent the priest back to Nigeria, the dying man's family knows full well what happened, and the priest had been reprimanded once before.
I didn't mean to imply that all Nigerian priests are like this one. They're clearly not.
I just question the need to have to import priests from Africa to America. Let's develop our own vocations here; that's going to require doing something different from what's been done for the last 30 years.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't have any preconceived notions as to what will "fix" the vocation crisis. I don't know, and neither do you.
That won't stop some, however, who take married priests off the table before the discussion has even begun.
Having once worked for a French airline, I spent many years commuting back and forth to Paris. What a horrible and devastating thing to witness!! The fact that your priest retained his wits in a foreign land, and had the presence of mind to place the needs of the victim before his own, speaks volumes. Thank you for sharing this faith story.
Agreed on that. We could start by ending the homo reign of terror in the seminaries.
Of course I'd like to see mandatory celibacy become optional. No one knows how many more men that would bring into the priesthood.
What the Church ought to do is to at least discuss the issue, and not eliminate anything but ordaining women from the discussion.
THAT'S a good thing, Sink.
We disagree.
Maybe the Nigerian Father was one of the Gay Mob in the priesthood. Maybe he took offence at being criticized by this good Catholic man who was going to meet his God? I don't think the dying man had to worry about not receiving the Last Rites from this dud priest. God is embracing this Catholic Man right now. Imho.
I agree. All of the visiting, missionary priests from Africa who have helped at our parish so that our priests could make their summer retreat have been devout and performed their duties in an exemplary manner. And at a time when our parish was losing its way, they dispensed the sacraments gracefully and patiently. Our visiting priests came mostly from Liberia, now an area in great turmoil, and a couple of them have been lost to the conflict, a loss to us all.
All too true. Some men have gone through the motions and call themselves 'priests' but have no love for the Church or what it supposed to be doing and how it's supposed to be in line with Rome. They take up space that could be used by devout men and twist the words and rules of the Church. Sadly, most of us know 'priests' like these. But we also know good and devout Priests who minister to us faithfully in the face of all of this. I imagine it must be really quite a shock to those visiting priests from areas where faith is not necessarily taken for granted to come to a rich country like ours where freedom of religion is granted and see that some tramble all over this great gift of ours, the Church. It must be culture shock to the foreign priests.
Of course, that in no way excuses this priest's denial of the sacrament.
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