Fr. John Corapi has published a statement—also available in video form—in which he has announced that he is leaving active ministry as a priest.

He’s right.

He is. And he has.

Unless something extraordinarily improbable occurs, he will never again function as a Catholic priest.

And it’s his decision.

I’m quite sympathetic to innocently accused priests and the need to have better safeguards to protect them. I think there is room for potential criticism of how the Church has formulated its policy, or how it applies that policy in particular cases.

I also do not know whether he is guilty of the sexual and other misconduct of which he is accused. I have no way of determining that.

A reader writes:

Recently I came a cross a web site that claimed that an anathema applies to anyone who affirms an doctrine that is contrary to the kind of anathema issued by Vatican I (that is, the kind that says, “If anyone says X, let him be anathema”).

The same site said that one of the anathemas of Vatican I made a powerful argument against sedevacantists who say that Pius XII was the last valid pope because Vatican I said that St. Peter will have successors to the end of time.

What do you make of these claims?

The claim that anathemas apply to those who contradict the canons of an ecumenical council, whether Vatican I or one of the other councils, is a common and understandable...READ MORE

No doubt you remember the firestorm that erupted when Pope Benedict appeared to express some form of openness to the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS in the case of prostitutes having sex with clients. We blogged about that a good bit.

The firestorm was caused by the fact that a lot of people either unwittingly or intentionally misrepresented this as some kind of blanket endorsement by the pope of condoms.

It was nothing of the kind. Responsible parties debated precisely what the pope’s meaning was, as there was some ambiguity to what he said, but it was clear that whatever he was saying was extremely limited in scope and certainly nothing like the broad aspirations of “safe...READ MORE

A couple of centuries ago it was becoming fashionable to date the gospels and other works of the New Testament very late, such as to the second half of the second century, more than a hundred years after the events they record.

This was due to an extreme skepticism regarding their reliability, coupled with various forms of flawed methodology.

As time has progressed, scholarship has pushed back the dates of the New Testament documents earlier and earlier, to the point that now almost all biblical scholars date them to the first century, with one or two possible exceptions (e.g., 2 Peter).

Some scholars, such as John A. T. Robinson date them to before A.D. 70—a view that I am inclined...READ MORE