Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Wacky Ex-Male Hooker Turned Catholic Priest Sues LifeSiteNews

LifeSiteNews is being sued by Canadian Priest, Fr. Raymond Gravel. I've never heard of the guy, but he sounds like a real piece of work.

Wikipedia reports:

"Gravel had an eventful youth during which he worked in bars in Montreal’s Gay Village; he has been open about the fact that he was a sex-trade worker during that time.[1] He entered the seminary in 1982 and became a priest. Gravel is controversial among the Catholic clergy and laity for his support of abortion and same-sex marriage — two issues officially opposed by the Church. He is currently the priest at St-Joachim de la Plaine Church in La Plaine, Quebec."

Details of the lawsuit aren't yet public, except for the fact that Fr. Wacky wants $500,000, but Life Site News reports they and Gravel have quite a history:

"The very fact that Fr. Gravel feels he has to sue LSN is proof-positive of just how much LSN is needed. Writing about LifeSiteNews.com in Le Devoir on April 20, 2009, Fr. Gravel said that when his bishop received a letter from the Vatican 'which forced me to retire from political life,' attached to the letter 'was a file almost exclusively in English (Fr. Gravel is apparently one of those Anglophobe Quebecers--that's the significance of the "exclusively in English" remark) made up of negative comments about me … which came from those ultra-conservative media.' He even complained about LifeSiteNews during a speech on the floor of the House of Commons!

And then, more recently, Fr. Gravel was removed from a position as a chief catechist for his diocese. In his motion Fr. Gravel suggests that the articles by LSN caused him to lose this responsibility."

If it's true that LifeSiteNews got a guy like that dismissed as chief cathechist, they deserve canonization, not a lawsuit. The Thomas More Society will help LSN, but they will need Canadian lawyers, too, apparently.

US and International donors can go here to support LifeSiteNews:

https://secure.lifesitenews.com/np/clients/lifesitenews_us/donation.jsp?campaign=27

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Are there any Catholic clerics in Canada. Since the Winnipeg Statement when virtually all Canadian bishops repudiated Humanae Vitae in 1969, the entire country seems to have been in a state of apostasy.

Why is nothing done about this?

It is so frustrating being a Catholic, attempting to be good, and observing nothing happening to openly rebellious priests who still don't mind collecting their paychecks from the Church.

George Weigel recently wrote that the Church prefers heresy to apostasy. I think we would be far better off with apostasy.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if it's not a sin that you called him "Fr. Wacky". What does the Golden Rule say about that?