Quick Update and Request

Last month I wrote my bishop, Barry Knestout.

I asked if we could work together with a mediator, or with a brother priest, or with anyone he might think helpful, in order to try to resolve our dispute over this blog.

I made the same request a year ago, and never got a direct response.

This time, I got this response:

Bishop Knestout has written to the Vatican, demanding that I be removed from the priesthood completely, without any further dialogue or recourse.

The bishop has submitted documents to the Vatican, to support his demand. I have never seen the documents. I have no idea what they contain. The bishop and I have never discussed this.

I have never done anything to justify the bishop’s actions, nothing that Church law forbids, or the moral law, or civil law.

All I want is to continue serving God as a priest. I have asked the bishop for an assignment. He refuses to give me one.

Would you be kind enough to write to Beniamino Cardinal Stella of the Congregation for Clergy at the Vatican? Could you alert him to the fact that Bishop Knestout has acted in a clearly unfair manner?

And could you share this with others and ask them to do so?

Write to Cardinal Stella in care of the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C.

His Eminence Beniamino Card. Stella

Prefect, Congregation for the Clergy

c/o The Apostolic Nunciature

3339 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20008