OHIO
PennLive
By John Luciew | jluciew@pennlive.com
on July 10, 2014
The man of the cloth was convicted of strangling a nun to death in northwest Ohio in 1980. The convicted Catholic priest, the Rev. Gerald Robinson, died July 4 at a hospice at age 76. On Friday, he will be buried in Toledo with a full Roman Catholic funeral mass befitting a priest, according to the Associated Press.
But the question remains: Should he be buried with full honors as a priest of the Catholic church?
After all, at the time of his death, Robinson was serving a life prison sentence for strangling Sister Margaret Ann Pahl at the hospital where they worked. Yet, Robinson remained a priest even after his murder conviction.
Organizations that help victims of clergy abuse don’t think that the convicted Robinson should be buried as a priest. These groups are upset that the Toledo diocese will observe the usual protocol for priests’ funerals, the AP reported.
For its part, the diocese says Robinson would receive a priest’s funeral because he remained a priest after his conviction, although he was not permitted to take part in public sacramental ministry, AP wrote
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.