Wednesday, December 14, 2005
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION
Clergyman Tried for Heresy by Diocese
A rare heresy trial was held Tuesday for a Roman Catholic priest who joined a denomination that doesn't accept papal infallibility and has ordained women clergy.
The Rev. Ned Reidy did not attend the one-day closed trial, which was conducted by three priests at the Diocese of San Bernardino. Reidy, 69, called the trial "medieval" and contends it has no authority because he stopped being a Roman Catholic in 1999.
Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the diocese, said Reidy was automatically excommunicated when he went to another denomination, but under church law he remains a Roman Catholic priest until he is formally excommunicated and defrocked. The heresy trial would "officially clarify his status within the church," Lincoln said. The court's decision will be announced to Reidy at an unspecified future date.
"I just think the discourtesy level is appalling," Reidy said of the trial. "I'm not a Roman Catholic priest. I used to be." Reidy was ordained in 1962 and was pastor of a parish in Palm Desert, near Palm Springs, before he resigned to join the Ecumenical Catholic Communion. He now is pastor of the 100-member Community of the Risen Christ church in Bermuda Dunes, a few miles from his old church.
His denomination considers itself Catholic in the sense of celebrating its sacraments. But it does not believe in the infallibility of the pope and permits married and female clergy. It also holds more liberal views than the Vatican on divorce, birth control and homosexuality.
Some Roman Catholic scholars told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that they were aware of just two heresy trials in the U.S. -- the current case and another in the San Bernardino diocese two years ago.
Such cases are rare anywhere in modern times, said Msgr. Thomas Green, a professor of canon law at The Catholic University of Washington in Washington, D.C. "By and large, once you get past the Council of Trent and the 1600s and 1700s, you don't hear much about it," he said.
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Clergyman Tried for Heresy by Diocese
A rare heresy trial was held Tuesday for a Roman Catholic priest who joined a denomination that doesn't accept papal infallibility and has ordained women clergy.
The Rev. Ned Reidy did not attend the one-day closed trial, which was conducted by three priests at the Diocese of San Bernardino. Reidy, 69, called the trial "medieval" and contends it has no authority because he stopped being a Roman Catholic in 1999.
Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the diocese, said Reidy was automatically excommunicated when he went to another denomination, but under church law he remains a Roman Catholic priest until he is formally excommunicated and defrocked. The heresy trial would "officially clarify his status within the church," Lincoln said. The court's decision will be announced to Reidy at an unspecified future date.
"I just think the discourtesy level is appalling," Reidy said of the trial. "I'm not a Roman Catholic priest. I used to be." Reidy was ordained in 1962 and was pastor of a parish in Palm Desert, near Palm Springs, before he resigned to join the Ecumenical Catholic Communion. He now is pastor of the 100-member Community of the Risen Christ church in Bermuda Dunes, a few miles from his old church.
His denomination considers itself Catholic in the sense of celebrating its sacraments. But it does not believe in the infallibility of the pope and permits married and female clergy. It also holds more liberal views than the Vatican on divorce, birth control and homosexuality.
Some Roman Catholic scholars told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that they were aware of just two heresy trials in the U.S. -- the current case and another in the San Bernardino diocese two years ago.
Such cases are rare anywhere in modern times, said Msgr. Thomas Green, a professor of canon law at The Catholic University of Washington in Washington, D.C. "By and large, once you get past the Council of Trent and the 1600s and 1700s, you don't hear much about it," he said.
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