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Loading ...Pope accepts resignation of anti-gay Penn. bishop
08.31.2009 1:30pm EDT
(Vatican City) Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the early retirement of a U.S. bishop who has denounced nuns for sponsoring lectures by gay-rights advocates and directed priests to deny communion to abortion backers, the Vatican said Monday.
The brief announcement, keeping to Vatican tradition, did not say why the staunchly conservative Monsignor Joseph Martino, 63, Bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania, had submitted his resignation. He took up the post in 2003.Under canon law, which contain the “rules” of the Catholic church, bishops are expected to offer their resignation when they turn 75, but the pope sometimes asks bishops to stay on beyond that age.
The Vatican said that the pope had accepted the resignation under a provision of canon law in which a bishop due to illness or “some other grave reason, has become unsuited” to carry out his duties, in which case the bishop is “earnestly requested to offer his resignation from office.”
A spokesman for the Vatican declined to elaborate on the resignation because the Diocese of Scranton had announced it will hold a news conference later in the day.
The resignation came as no surprise. A local newspaper reported last week that workers removed furniture from Martino’s residence in Scranton.
The pope also accepted the resignation of Scranton’s auxiliary bishop John Dougherty for reasons of age. No new appointments were announced.
Guess it’s a slow gay news day! The Asshole pope will just pick another Asshole bishop to replace him.
So, I’m guessing your glass is half empty today, petenick
Yes Bill, when it comes to the catholic church it usually is! I had their number
when I was 7 years old!
I wonder what the “grave reason” was — did he finally go nuts?
Grave reason – they prob found him on top of another guy……………
That is what you get with these creeps when you deny sex.
Just as so many many priests committed what is nothing but the equivalent of prison rape on their choir boys – acts of humiliation, really not sex, designed to establish the power structure.
And why did the church hide these crimes for decades, and let them continue?
Your choice:
1. they needed the priests to keep the collection plates full more then they needed the choir boys treated like human beings.
2. The rot goes all the way to the top.
BTW= why were there so few cases of girls being raped – because until recently girls couldn’t be “choir girls”.
Wow, Bill, did I read you correctly? Criticizing someone for throwing reality around regarding the RCC?
Only true self hating gays would defend evil, disgusting, bigoted religion. Even in our community, where we have to defend ourselves from religious attack since birth, people are brainwashed into believing these outright lies. You will not get “eternal life” for doing anything, anything at all including doing the dirty work of the church.
And if you give money, you are the worse type of hypocrite. Tithe = murderer.
I’m a glass half full kind of guy. That makes me hope whoever the Pope picks for the hate-monger in chief in Pennsylvania quits quickly so the post is empty again.