Accuser and excommunicated priest both wait as sexual violation case drags on

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

September 16, 2020

By Peter Feuerherd

The accuser prefers the traditional Tridentine rite Latin Mass. That way she only sees the celebrant from the back and can pray in peace, she told NCR.

“That’s real separation; it doesn’t feel like the priest interacts with you,” she said.

A few thousand miles away in Sacramento, California, Jeremy Leatherby, the former pastor of Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, excommunicated priest, and the man she accuses of sexual exploitation, is said to be living quietly with his family.

The excommunication was invoked only after Leatherby refused to acknowledge Pope Francis and Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento during the Eucharistic Prayer. While suspended, awaiting a church court’s verdict on the alleged sexual violations, Leatherby celebrated Mass in private homes in violation of his bishop’s order. During those liturgies, he proclaimed Pope Benedict XVI as the only living legitimate successor of Peter.

Soto responded in an announcement made public Aug. 7.

“Fr. Jeremy Leatherby has placed himself and others in a state of schism with the Roman Catholic Church. By his words and actions, Fr. Leatherby has incurred a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication. This means that by his own volition he has separated himself from communion with the Roman Pontiff, Pope Francis, and other members of the Catholic Church,” wrote Soto.

That, according to canon law, took care of the theological dispute.

But on the issue of alleged sexual exploitation, the accuser awaits church justice. Leatherby, in a letter addressed to his former priest colleagues and posted Aug. 8 on the St. Joseph’s Battalion Sacramento blog, said he awaits exoneration.

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