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"Cdl. Wuerl censured priest who denied lesbian Communion, but let predatory clergy remain active"
lifesitenews.com
"As Bishop of Pittsburgh, Donald Wuerl allowed pedophile priests to continue in active ministry, according to an explosive grand jury report released by the Pennsylvania Attorney General on Tuesday.
This and more was revealed in the damning report on decades of sex abuse and how it was covered up in six Pennsylvania dioceses. One-third of the priests named as accused of sex abuse in the report came from the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
As Archbishop of Washington, though, now-Cardinal Wuerl did not afford the same mercy to a priest who upheld the Catholic faith and suffered a media firestorm for it.
In a much-publicized 2012 case, Father Marcel Guarnizo discreetly refused to give Holy Communion – which according to the Catholic Church is the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, only to be consumed by practicing Catholics in a state of grace – to an active lesbian at her mother’s funeral. Fr. Guarnizo... was officiating the funeral at St. John Naumann parish in Gaithersburg, Maryland, located within the Archdiocese of Washington.
'I understand and agree it is the policy of the archdiocese to assume good faith when a Catholic presents himself for communion; like most priests I am not at all eager to withhold communion,' Fr. Guarnizo wrote of the incident. However, the woman he denied Communion, Barbara Johnson, made a point of introducing herself as a lesbian to him before Mass, entering the sacristy and introducing another woman as her 'lover.'
'If a Quaker, a Lutheran or a Buddhist, desiring Communion had introduced himself as such, before Mass, a priest would be obligated to withhold communion. If someone had shown up in my sacristy drunk, or high on drugs, no Communion would have been possible either. If a Catholic, divorced and remarried (without an annulment) would make that known in my sacristy, they too according to Catholic doctrine, would be impeded from receiving Communion,' he explained.
Fr. Guarnizo quietly refused to give Johnson the Eucharist. She 'promptly chose to go to the (lay) Eucharistic minister (nearby) to receive communion and did so,' Fr. Guarnizo explained.
Johnson then made a large stink about the event in the secular press, and Fr. Guarnizo was promptly raked over the coals and the Archdiocese of Washington censured him, revoking his permission to operate as a priest in Wuerl’s ecclesial territory.
Fr. Guarnizo was punished for 'engaging in intimidating behavior toward parish staff and others that is incompatible with proper priestly ministry,' Wuerl’s auxiliary, Bishop Barry Knestout, wrote in a letter at the time...
'In the days after the funeral Mass, the archdiocese issued an apology to Johnson and sent a letter stating that Guarnizo’s refusal of Communion to her was against the policy of Archbishop Donald Wuerl, who has said it is not the right time or place for a spiritual standoff,' the Washington Post reported at the time.
Treatment of faithful Fr. Guarnizo vs. treatment of predator Fr. Zirwas
In sharp contrast to the Archdiocese of Washington’s swift removal of Fr. Guarnizo for following Catholic teaching on Holy Communion, the grand jury report indicates that the Diocese of Pittsburgh under Wuerl didn’t immediately take priests accused of child sex abuse out of public ministry, thus allowing them continued access to children.
One Pittsburgh priest, Father George Zirwas, was reported to the diocese as having molested underage boys. Some of these complaints were filed when Wuerl was bishop.
'The Grand Jury learned that the Diocese was aware of complaints against Zirwas for sexually abusing children as early as 1987,' the report says. 'Additional complaints were received between 1987 and 1995. However, Zirwas continued to function as a priest during this period and was reassigned to several parishes.'
Wuerl and diocesan bureaucrats knew about complaints against Fr. Zirwas but let him continue in active ministry, putting more boys at risk for homosexual molestation.
The grand jury ultimately found that Zirwas had been involved in manufacturing child porn based on religious imagery on Church property. He was part of a group of priests who 'used whips, violence and sadism in raping their victims.'
The diocese had Zirwas 'evaluated' by a hospital in 1988, but he 'continued in ministry' after being released, the grand jurors found.
After bouncing to a few other Pittsburgh parishes, Fr. Zirwas met in July 1995 with then-Father David Zubik – who later succeeded Wuerl as bishop of Pittsburgh – and 'threatened to pursue legal action against other diocesan personnel for ‘raising the consciousness of some of the people at St. Joseph Parish concerning his relationship to the public scandals which surfaced in 1988.’...
'Within days, Zirwas was returned to ministry by Bishop Donald Wuerl,' the grand jury learned.
Zubik was already aware of complaints against Zirwas, having been told about molestation he committed during a meeting with a victim and two other priests in June 1991.
In November 1995, the diocese received yet another complaint about Zirwas, and he was placed on a leave of absence for 'personal reasons.'
He remained on that leave of absence for the rest of his life. His involvement with the diocese wasn’t over, though.
Although he moved to Florida (and later Cuba, where he was murdered, according to Church Militant, by a gay prostitute), in 1996, Zirwas told the Diocese of Pittsburgh he knew about illegal sexual activity being committed by other Pittsburgh priests..."
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