There is a storm brewing in New York and it has nothing to do with the weather. The Catholic Archdiocese of New York has been sued (nothing new there) concerning a Throgs Neck priest accused of financing his alternative lifestyle with parish funds.
The controversy began earlier this year with an email sent to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the Archdiocese of New York. The email concerned the behavior of Father Peter Miqueli. The email alleged that the priest has an ongoing relationship with a man involving sadomasochistic activity. According to reports concerning the email, the priest owns a house that is equipped with a dungeon.
Parishioners of St. Frances de Chantal Catholic Church in the Bronx filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New York and Cardinal Dolan in order to have the pastor removed from the parish.
As Rod Dreher notes in a column over the past weekend, the Archdiocesan response is odd and doesn’t really address the parishioners’ concerns or that if the allegations are true, the Catholic Church has another sex scandal on its hands that once again involves church hierarchy. This time, the stakes are high since one of the named defendants is none other than Cardinal Dolan himself, a powerful bishop in the United States.
If the allegations are proven accurate, it demonstrates once again that the Catholic Church has not really learned anything from the child sex abuse scandal. It also shows that children aren’t safe because there is a lack of integrity and transparency in the institution.