Yesterday, the sad news broke that Fr. Corapi is leaving public ministry as a priest. Fr. Corapi is well known for his talks on the faith which have appeared on EWTN and been given before Catholic audiences across the country. In March of this year, it was announced that his order had put him on administrative leave after allegations surfaced that he was guilty of sexual misconduct.From Catholic News Agency:
Fr. Corapi insists that he is innocent of the charges against him and that the process for priests accused of sexual misconduct is "inherently and fatally flawed." However, rather than defend his innocence and humbly accept this unfair treatment, he has decided to walk away from 20 years of priesthood. This is a tragic outcome. He needs our prayers, as do all those in public ministry who Satan is actively working to silence and attack spiritually.In the wake of being suspended over what he claims are unproven allegations, popular speaker Fr. John Corapi announced that after 20 years in ministry, he's leaving the Catholic priesthood.
“I am not going to be involved in public ministry as a priest any longer,” he said in an online post. “There are certain persons in authority in the Church that want me gone, and I shall be gone.”
In a June 17 post on a website with the title of his new ministry “Black Sheep Dog,” and a related YouTube video clip, Fr. Corapi outlined his reasons for leaving.
He said that he feels unjustly accused, that the process of clearing his name has been too sluggish and that there are authorities in the Church who are intentionally trying to oust him.
Jimmy Akin writes:
...Fr. Corapi has forever ruined any chances he had of functioning as a Catholic priest.
He could have done the sensible thing and waited.
If he faced setbacks, he could have taken the avenues of canonical recourse open to him, which included multiple potential appeals to Rome.
I am not in any way unsympathetic to falsely accused priests or priests who feel that the need to be more stringent safeguards against false accusations. In fact, if Fr. Corapi were innocent (as he may be) then he could have chosen to make himself a test case to get better safeguards enacted. (After all, that’s something only an innocently accused priest can do; a guilty priest cannot expect such since the truth against him has come out).
But Fr. Corapi—or “the Black SheepDog”—or whatever he wants to be called—chose not to stand firm in the face of what he claimed were false allegations.
Instead, he chose to defy authority and set up his own shop, claiming as a “sheep dog” to protect the flock whose leaders he is defying.
...
It doesn’t matter if the charges against him were false. By refusing to cooperate with the Church’s process, and by announcing his intention to speak in defiance of that authority, he has rejected any chance of resolving the charges against him on the grounds that he is innocent.
Fr. Z, who incidentally was also ordained by Blessed John Paul II on the same day as Fr. Corapi, reminds us of the spiritual battles priests endure:
Please remember, please, that all priests are human beings and subject to the afflictions of the world the flesh and the devil. If you look at them in some other way, you do them and yourselves a disservice.
It is what we signed up for, but sometimes it can be very hard.
I will keep Fr. Corapi on my prayer list, and will remember him in a special way, hoping that through the help of the Holy Spirit, who bends the rigid and heals the broken and consoles those who are in pain, he will have some peace whether he is able to return to active ministry or not, whether he wants to or not. He is a priest forever and he is my brother in that indelible mark received from Christ the High priest. And because he is a priest forever, the devil will not relent in attacking him until he dies. Nor will the devil relent in attacking anyone who has authority over him.
But priests and bishops remain men and remain sinners. We need the support of prayers especially regarding the primary goal of saving our souls. We must, for the love of God, help each other.
The enemy hates priests and bishops. Let me say that again. The enemy hates priests and bishops. When priests and bishops start making inroads, they will be attacked with intensity.
