Catholic Priest

Dennis Mongrain swings his surfboard around in the water, points himself toward shore and starts paddling. As the wave lifts his board, he jumps to his feet and begins to skirt across its smooth, arching surface. His face brightens with a broad smile. It's a moment of joy and peace, something akin to a religious experience for Mongrain, who should know about such things because he is a Roman Catholic priest. "I really look forward to getting out there," Mongrain said at the rectory of St.

Re "What went wrong in the Catholic Church?," Opinion, Feb. 10 For centuries the Roman Catholic Church was the most important entity in the Western world. As wealth and power can corrupt people, so it was with the church. Throughout the ages, supposed celibate clerics fathered children and molested boys. Neither the mothers nor the children had any recourse. As Michael D'Antonio states, with today's educated middle class, governments and effective courts, the abused have been able to fight back.

James Kavanaugh, a former Catholic priest who came to fame in 1967 with his controversial bestseller calling for reform in the church and later wrote bestselling books of poetry and other works, has died. He was 81. Kavanaugh, who underwent surgery for an aortic aneurysm in July, died Dec. 29 in a hospice in Kalamazoo, Mich., said his wife, Cathy. Ordained in 1954, Kavanaugh served as a parish priest in Lansing and Flint, Mich., and earned a doctorate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., before the publication of "A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church" in 1967.

For a long time, the story of the four chaplains was everywhere. In classrooms, posters showed the men of different faiths, arms linked in prayer, braced against the waves engulfing the deck of their torpedoed troop ship on Feb. 3, 1943. They had given their life preservers to frantic soldiers and urged troops paralyzed with fear to jump into the icy North Atlantic before they were sucked down by the sinking ship's whirlpool. A postage stamp in 1948 honored the two Protestant ministers, the Catholic priest and the rabbi.

Funeral services were pending Monday for the Rev. Maurice Chase, a Catholic priest known as "Father Dollar Bill" for his holiday giveaways of $1 bills to the homeless on Skid Row. Chase, 92, died Sunday night at his home in Los Angeles after a battle with cancer, according to his nephew, Robert Boyd. "He was a really great, colorful, wonderful man," he said. Chase was a fixture on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles on holidays such as Easter and Thanksgiving. The homeless and poor would line up for blocks as Chase would hand out $1 bills -- or sometimes larger denominations to the particularly needy.

Father Ladislas K. Parker, a Catholic priest whose harrowing escape from communist Hungary in 1950 led him to Orange County and the founding of St. Michael's Abbey, died Sunday after a lengthy illness. He was 94. Parker was among seven Norbertine monks from Csorna, Hungary, who dodged soldiers and land mines, crawled under barbed-wire fences and swam across a river to freedom in Austria. They eventually came to the United States and took jobs as teachers at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana. Saving their money and pooling resources, they purchased a 34-acre former cow pasture in the then largely undeveloped Trabuco Canyon area and opened a monastery in 1961.

A Catholic priest in the upstate town of Greece was sentenced to 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. The U.S. attorney in Buffalo said in a statement that the case came to light after Michael Volino, 42, contacted an information technology help line for the Diocese of Rochester in January to report problems with his computer.

A Roman Catholic priest said on local television that he has AIDS and defended his gay life style, despite the priestly vow of celibacy and the Pope's condemnation of homosexuality. "AIDS is not a moral judgment. AIDS is not God's wrath," said Father Robert Arpin, 40, who claimed to have the support of the San Francisco Archdiocese. In an interview aired Tuesday on KPIX, Arpin called the church "the institution that, in many ways, is most oppressive of gay people."

Father Harold E. Whittet, 78, retired Catholic priest who served as a chaplain in the Philippines during World War II and national soloist for the Veterans of Foreign Wars for 14 years. The Redwood Falls, Minn., native spent five years studying at American College in Louvain, Belgium, and was ordained in June, 1940. He served in parishes of St. John Vianney in St. Paul, St. Rose of Lima in Roseville, and was chaplain at Pater Noster High School in Los Angeles for a decade. He was a member of St.

A Roman Catholic priest was found fatally shot inside his car in a popular restaurant district, the latest victim in a violent crime wave sweeping this border city. Luis Velasquez Romero, 52, was handcuffed before being shot six times in his head and neck Monday, authorities said. Because of the execution style of the attack, they suspect the killing was an organized-crime hit. Velasquez, church officials said, had no disciplinary record.

SAN JOSE - A jury has found a San Francisco man not guilty of felony assault and felony elder abuse, despite his admission that he attacked the priest accused of molesting him nearly four decades ago. The 10-man, two-woman panel also said Thursday that William Lynch was not guilty of misdemeanor elder abuse in the 2010 attack on Father Jerold Lindner. The 67-year-old Catholic priest has been linked to more than a dozen alleged victims - including his own nieces, nephew and sister - but never has been brought to trial because the statute of limitations in every case had run out. The jury was split on a final charge against Lynch: misdemeanor assault.

President Obama wasn't mentioned by name, but he was clearly the target Thursday as the nation's Roman Catholic bishops began their "Fortnight for Freedom" campaign with a renewed attack on a federal mandate for private employers to provide free contraceptive coverage to workers. The mandate, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore told worshipers at a nationally televised Mass, "will force conscientious private employers to violate their consciences" by making them offer "reproductive services that are morally objectionable.

St. Patrick's Day-- today, March 17 -- is arguably the most inclusive holiday of them all. Everyone is an honorary Irishman on St. Patrick's Day, right? But who was the real St. Patrick? And how did he manage to become one of the most popular saints, transcending cultures and religions? Before you celebrate St. Patrick's Day by hoisting a pint and tucking into some corned beef, cabbage and Irish soda bread, here's six facts we bet you didn't know about St. Patrick. -- He was not Irish . "He was not born in Ireland ," said Father Ryan Wayne Erlenbush, a Catholic priest and blogger at the New Theological Movement . "He was born in Kilpatrick, Scotland, about 387" A.D. -- He was a slave.

Funeral services were pending Monday for the Rev. Maurice Chase, a Catholic priest known as "Father Dollar Bill" for his holiday giveaways of $1 bills to the homeless on Skid Row. Chase, 92, died Sunday night at his home in Los Angeles after a battle with cancer, according to his nephew, Robert Boyd. "He was a really great, colorful, wonderful man," he said. Chase was a fixture on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles on holidays such as Easter and Thanksgiving. The homeless and poor would line up for blocks as Chase would hand out $1 bills -- or sometimes larger denominations to the particularly needy.

In 1967, and now Re "A blunt push for peace," May 20 In his speech explicitly stating America's friendship with Israel and our commitment to its security, President Obama urged the Israelis to return to their 1967 borders as a means of securing peace. That would include relinquishing the Golan Heights, perhaps allowing Syria to resume shelling farms and homes in northern Israel (as was the case in 1967). It would also include giving up East Jerusalem and access to the Western Wall, the Jewish state's holiest site.

Blame the flower children. That seems to be the chief conclusion of a new report about the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal. The study, undertaken by John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the request of America's Catholic bishops, links the spike in child abuse by priests in the 1960s and '70s to "the importance given to young people and popular culture" — along with the emergence of the feminist movement, a "singles culture" and a...

The Los Angeles district attorney's office filed felony charges Friday against a fugitive Catholic priest, alleging that he sexually molested a teen-age boy who worked as a receptionist at a Glendale church. Father Tilak Jayawardene, 47, was charged with six counts of oral copulation in connection with incidents that allegedly occurred between Oct. 23 and Nov. 5, said district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

Father Michael Gary Kinzer on Thursday called his arrest on suspicion of possessing illegal drugs for sale "a gift from God." The 48-year-old priest, who was subsequently removed as pastor of St. Barbara Church in Santa Ana, offered no explanation for the five bags of powdered methamphetamine that police said they found in his car May 1. "Irrational, self-destructive acts are beyond explanation," he said.

The Rev. Tom Batsis sat in the dining room of the priests' residence at a Roman Catholic church in North Hollywood, religious images gracing the wall behind him. He hadn't invited me to visit because he wanted to discuss spiritual matters. Batsis wanted to talk about the trouble he and the two other priests in the rectory were having with Time Warner Cable. They believed they were victims of identity theft, he said, but the cable giant didn't seem interested in discussing the matter.

James Kavanaugh, a former Catholic priest who came to fame in 1967 with his controversial bestseller calling for reform in the church and later wrote bestselling books of poetry and other works, has died. He was 81. Kavanaugh, who underwent surgery for an aortic aneurysm in July, died Dec. 29 in a hospice in Kalamazoo, Mich., said his wife, Cathy. Ordained in 1954, Kavanaugh served as a parish priest in Lansing and Flint, Mich., and earned a doctorate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., before the publication of "A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church" in 1967.