OREGON
National Catholic Reporter
Dan Morris-Young | Feb. 26, 2014
Editor’s note: This is Part 3 of a five-part series on the dispute between a pastor and his bishop in St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Bend, Ore. Removed from his post last October, Fr. James Radloff filed an appeal, but his request was denied by the Vatican, as the Congregation for Clergy sided with Baker, Ore., Bishop Liam Cary. The Jan. 31 decision allows Cary to keep secret the reason for the ouster and permits a continued bar on Radloff’s public ministry. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Baker, Ore. Bishop Liam Cary’s emphasis on the vow of obedience in his May 7, 2013 open letter to St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Bend, Ore. is viewed by many as a key to Fr. James Radloff’s removal as pastor.
Petitions were circulated asking the bishop to back down on plans to transfer popular Spanish-speaking priest Fr. Juan Carlos Chiarinoti, a native Argentinian. In the letter, Cary admonished parishioners and Radloff for the petition effort. He called it “out of place” and said it “thrust into public view matters that must be dealt with in private and whetted the appetite for an explanation that could not be forthcoming.”
Cary also directly rebuked Radloff: “In launching this movement to pressure me to do what he wanted, your pastor made a very serious error of judgment. He actively recruited you to stand with him against your bishop. … On the day of his ordination, a priest places his hands between those of the bishop and publicly promises ‘respect and obedience’ to him and his successors. … To build up the unity of the Church, priests must be willing to walk the way of obedience; and a bishop must be able to count on his priests to be true to their promise.”
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