Fr. Corapi Lashes Out at the Church for Unfair Treatment

Fr. Corapi has been accused of drug use and sexual assault by an adult woman who had formerly been employed by him. As a result, Fr. Corapi has been put on administrative leave until the accusations can be sorted out.

Fr. Corapi posted this on the home page of his website:

I’ll certainly cooperate with the process, but personally believe that it is seriously flawed, and is tantamount to treating the priest as guilty “just in case”, then through the process determining if he is innocent. The resultant damage to the accused is immediate, irreparable, and serious, especially for someone like myself, since I am so well known. I am not alone in this assessment, as multiple canon lawyers and civil and criminal attorneys have stated publicly that the procedure does grave damage to the accused from the outset, regardless of rhetoric denying this, and has little regard for any form of meaningful due process.

I don't think the accusations are credible, given what I've heard about the character of the woman making them, and from what I know about Fr. Corapi. By the way, this isn't the first time a "crazy" woman has made incredible accusations of this nature against Fr. Corapi. Fr. Corapi is a target. More on that in a moment.

This kind of treatment certainly isn't akin to American jurisprudence, and it may not be fair. However, I'll leave that question up to the canon lawyers and Fr. Corapi's civil lawyers. What I find interesting is Fr. Corapi's expression of angst directed toward church leaders and current policies set in place as a response to the priest-sex abuse scandal. This brings up two questions for me:

1. Why doesn't Fr. Corapi direct some this righteous anger toward his brother priests and bishops whose actions and inaction, respectively, necessitated the current state of affairs?

Speaking as a parent, and given recent history and what we now know about the extent of the problem, I would prefer that priests and other church workers accused of ANY deviancy be removed from ministry until the allegations can be determined credible or not. This may not seem fair to those falsely accused, but it is more than fair to our children. No, I don't like it, but nor do I like the fact that known perverts were ordained by liberal bishops at the bidding of liberal vocation directors and seminary establishments. That is the reason why Fr. Corapi was given this cross, and I would ask and hope he offers this suffering up in reparation for the sacrilege of the priest-sex abuse scandal.

2. I wonder if the same neo-cons who lament the Church being attacked when a traditionalist criticizes the Second Vatican Council, Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI, will cry fowl now that Fr. Corapi is lashing out at the current Church establishment?

This may be risking pettiness, but it seems that the Fr. Corapi's of the world are free to criticize policies that have been endorsed by the current pontiff, while traditionalists aren't. There's an obvious double standard in the neo-con camp, but the neo-cons at this time are the most visible and vociferous camp in the modern Church, so it is doubtful that they will notice their double dealing.

This leads me to my last opinion regarding this unhappy situation. Thanks to EWTN and popular internet websites and blogs, the neo-cons are the most visible and vociferous camp in the modern Church, and, despite the liberal If-I-be-nice-they-will-be-nice-back mentality, the Church has real and vicious enemies who will take any and all opportunities to attack and discredit. This isn't the first time in recent history that a darling of the neo-cons has been put to the rack, and it will not be the last.

The problem is, are the neo-cons properly equipped to withstand these attacks? Don't get me wrong, traditionalists aren't impeccable or incapable of being discredited. However, traditionalists at least can fathom a world that is populated by a substantial portion of reprobate enemies of Christ and the Church.

Neo-cons seem bent on hugging the evil out of others, a program that has failed time after time. After a half century of "hating the sin but loving the sinner", the only thing that seems to have been accomplished is that there are now a lot more sinners running around to love. No, that program is just as flawed as the expression "hate the sin but love the sinner", which is a misinterpretation of what St. Augustine wrote.

At the very least, traditional Catholics have enough sense to have a vehement aversion and abhorrence of the unrepentant and manifest sinner, heretic or schismatic, which in turn indicates to them who they can and cannot trust. It also gives the traditionalist a realistic expectation of what they face, and what they face, the same enemies that are attacking the neo-cons in force, is a pretty terrible force of evil in our world, capable of destroying reputations and careers. No battle can be won, if one doesn't know who or what they are fighting.

I'm confident that Fr. Corapi will come out of this as unscathed as is reasonably possible. I think he is a victim of a false accusation, his liberal brother priests and bishops who allowed the Church to be infested by perverts, and the neo-cons who have painted a way-too-rosy-picture of human nature. However, I disagree with him that he is a victim of the Church or current Church policy.

Nevertheless, you can be sure I'll be praying for him, especially that this episode will lead him toward traditional Catholicism and the Traditional Latin Mass. God bless Fr. Corapi!