One Ontario Roman Catholic priest has been suspended for publicly supporting the ordination of women clergy and a second is under close scrutiny from his superiors after his declaration on national television that he is homosexual.
Rev. Ed Cachia was fired as pastor of St. Michael's Parish in Cobourg, east of Toronto, after he wrote an article in the Cobourg Daily Star urging his church to admit women to the priesthood and reportedly told his bishop he had celebrated mass with women priests in the United States.
Rev. Tom Lynch, a spokesman for the Catholic diocese of Peterborough, which includes Cobourg, said the newspaper article could have been overlooked - "People's memories are short and the Cobourg Star is not the New York Times" - but celebrating the mass with women priests is a clear violation of church canon law.
Canon law forbids Catholic priests from concelebrating or co-officiating at mass with clergy who do not accept the same doctrines as the Catholic Church. Catholic doctrine reserves the priesthood for men.
Father Cachia, 56, plans to appear in St. Michael's tomorrow to say goodbye. He said his bishop has given him $1,000 a month to live on for the rest of the year and then he is on his own - without pension, benefits or a roof over his head. He said he estimates about 95 per cent of his congregation supports him.
Meanwhile, Vision TV's flagship public affairs program, 360 Vision, on Thursday broadcast a profile of Rev. Karl Clemens, who declared to the camera: "I'm a Roman Catholic priest. And I'm gay." Vision said Father Clemens is the first Canadian priest to come out of the closet.
His superior, Archbishop Anthony Meagher of Kingston, immediately ordered a transcript of the program, but made no comment.
Father Clemens administers to the homosexual and HIV-AIDS communities in downtown Toronto and lives with a man, a terminal AIDS sufferer, for whom he says he is caring. He also says he has maintained his celibacy, although he says his church superiors have indicated on more than one occasion that they don't believe him.
The church does not bar homosexuals from the priesthood, but frowns on priests who publicly identify themselves with a homosexual lifestyle or culture.
At issue, a church spokesman said, is whether a priest's statements or lifestyle cause scandal for the church by "sowing confusion in the public's minds." The spokesman said priests are held to a different level of moral conduct than laypersons. "Here is this fellow who has retired to the gay subculture, and people are going to wonder why he's there. Is he reaching out [to the AIDS community]or is it something else? People constantly feel free to speculate about our [priests']sex lives, and it's a hard thing for a priest to realize he's a public person."
A Vatican commission is investigating what has been reported to be overt gay culture in some U.S. Catholic seminaries. A statement is expected soon from the Vatican that bars those who visibly belong or have belonged to the gay culture from the priesthood.
The Vision program will be rebroadcast on Monday.
Father Cachia said yesterday in an interview that the Catholic Church's harsh repression of dissent is turning it into a dying institution. He quoted dissident theologian Hans Kung as likening the church to a sinking ship and saying the ones who will be saved are those who swim away from the ship as it goes down, not those who stay on board.
He said he spoke as a matter of justice on behalf of women wanting to enter the priesthood: They are women who feel God's call to become full participants in the church's ministry. He said that to claim that Jesus chose only men as his disciples is a false argument. "Jesus only chose Jews, too."
Father Cachia did not rule out a move to the Anglican Church, in which women can be ordained as priests.
With a report from Canadian Press