A news story follows up on the case of Phoenix priest Father John Cunningham, suspended by Bishop Thomas Olmsted for letting a non-Catholic concelebrate a wedding Mass. Cunningham was also one of the nine Phoenix priests ordered by Olmsted to remove his name from an open letter of area clergy demanding the Church and society welcome and accept homosexuality as normal and healthy.
Olmsted said an investigation was inconclusive so the matter has been turned over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I wonder how it could be inconclusive. There had to have been dozens of witnesses. Any number of them could verify what actually happened.
I don’t think the bishop had the option to settle the matter himself.
Cases involving attempted concelebration with Protestants are reserved to CDF: see http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010518_epistula_graviora delicta_lt.html.
You’d think, being a wedding Mass, that most likely the couple that married would have a video of the Mass. Get ahold of the tape, if one exists, and that should give Bishop Olmsted all he needs to know.
Why is he suspended in this case? For other and more serious offenses to the faith and morality, priests are merely “removed from public ministry” by bishops – which as we now know means that such a priest can privately celebrate Mass.