The Vatican has excommunicated a Melbourne priest who backed same-sex
“marriage” and set up a rebel group for disgruntled Catholics after he
was suspended two years ago following a homily promoting women’s
ordination.
The priest, Greg Reynolds, who was also laicized, took the story to
Australian media last week. LifeSiteNews.com spoke briefly with the
Archdiocese of Melbourne’s spokesman, James O’Farrell, who confirmed the
excommunication.
Reynolds says the excommunication document was dated May 31st,
after Pope Francis’ election, and that he was told by the archdiocese
the move came straight from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, and not by the request of Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart.
The news broke Saturday, two days after a controversial 12,000 word
interview with the Pope, in which he had briefly addressed abortion and
gay "marriage," was published in Jesuit magazines around the world.
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and
the use of contraceptive methods,” Pope Francis had said in that
interview.
“This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I
was reprimanded for that,” he added. “But when we speak about these
issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the
church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it
is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
The off-the-cuff remarks were interpreted by much of the mainstream
press as a call by the Pope for the Church to downplay, or even abandon,
its teachings on difficult moral issues. However, that narrative was
interrupted when, the following day, the pope issued his strongest remarks to date against abortion, condemning the practice as a manifestation of a “throwaway culture.”
The following day, the excommunication of Reynolds became public.
Reynolds told The Age that he was summoned to a meeting on
Wednesday morning with Fr. John Salvano, Dean of St. Patrick’s
Cathedral, in which Fr. Salvano read and translated the excommunication
notice to him. ''He told me that Denis Hart did not apply for me to be
laicised, but someone else unknown has gone over his head and contacted
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” Reynolds said. ''The
Vatican never contacted me, and it gives no explanation.''
The now-former priest said he had thought he would be laicized but was surprised to learn of the excommunication.
Archbishop Hart suspended Reynolds in 2011 after the priest delivered a homily supporting women’s ordination.
A year later, Reynolds founded a group called “Inclusive Catholics”
through which he has been offering Mass illicitly. On the group’s website,
Reynolds explains that he founded it because of his “growing conviction
that the Institutional Catholic Church was wrong in its teaching on
Women's Ordination and on Homosexuality.”
Culled from Lifesitenews
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