{"id":4576,"date":"2006-08-22T17:08:38","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T22:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2006\/08\/22\/vocation-to-selfishness\/"},"modified":"2006-08-22T17:08:38","modified_gmt":"2006-08-22T22:08:38","slug":"vocation-to-selfishness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2006\/08\/vocation-to-selfishness\/","title":{"rendered":"Vocation to selfishness"},"content":{"rendered":"

A story appeared today on the priest in my diocese who was excommunicated for joining Rent-A-Priest<\/a>. [Via Dom<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n

"That’s what I see my ministry as – reaching out to those who have been disenfranchised," Fisher told the Times-Union on Monday.<\/p>\n

Fisher had been married and divorced, raised two children, and ran his own insurance agency before his ordination and said he plans to remarry soon.<\/p>\n

Fisher said his troubles began in the summer of 2005, when the diocese learned of those plans.<\/p>\n

In June of that year it removed him from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Palm Coast, where he had been associate pastor for one year.<\/p>\n

Previously he had served at Christ the King parish in Jacksonville from 2002 to 2004.<\/p>\n

Fisher said the diocese tried to convince him to go through the process of laicization, before his planned marriage. The procedure transforms a Catholic’s status from that of clergy to lay person.<\/p>\n

Fisher said he refused.<\/p>\n

"I felt it [ordination] was a gift as well as a call and is an integral part of who I am," Fisher said.<\/p>\n

Fisher said he joined Rent A Priest in March because he wanted to continue functioning as a priest and needed the fellowship of other priests who had married, he said.<\/p>\n

Galeone learned of Fisher’s involvement with the group in April, Bagg-Morgan said, when he received a letter from Rent A Priest’s parent organization, CITI Ministries. The due-process procedure for excommunications began shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

He preached at my parish once soon after being ordained on the Feast of the Assumption. The homily was quite good and orthodox. This is sad that unfortunately this late-vocation priest decided that the priesthood was all about him. Please send some prayers his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A story appeared today on the priest in my diocese who was excommunicated for joining Rent-A-Priest. [Via Dom] "That’s what I see my ministry as – reaching out to those…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}