A priest of the Diocese of San Bernardino is on trial for heresy because he left the Church to start a schismatic church of something called the Ecumenical Catholic Communion.
Ned Reidy says he stopped being a Catholic priest and a Roman Catholic back in 1999 when he left the Church. The diocese says it is holding the heresy trial because Reidy’s new church and previous ordination as a Catholic priest
may confuse some Catholics and the goal is to make sure everyone knows what the score is.
According to DeFide.com, Reidy is accused of “heresy and schism. Alleged heresies include the denial of the Inerrancy of Sacred Scripture; the Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception, and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and the validity of marriage only between man and woman. Alleged schism is based upon Reidy’s subjection to the hierarchical claims of Mark Shirilau, “Primate” of the Ecumenical Catholic Church, in defiance of the universal jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI.”
Marc Balestrieri, the canon lawyer who started DeFide.com and last year filed denunciations for heresy against five pro-abortion Catholic politicians, says that he hopes this signals a trend.
“Hopefully colleagues of Bishop Barnes in the Episcopate will follow his example, and finally apply the disciplinary canons of the Code of Canon Law against heresy. If left unchecked as it has been for far too long, public contradiction of core tenets of the Faith will continue to wreak grave spiritual and physical harm upon the Church’s members and other citizens in society.”
I’m not going to hold my breath for that. If they can’t even stop themselves from giving man-of-the-year awards to these guys, they aren’t going to put them on trial for heresy.
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