NEW YORK
New York Daily News
By CHARLES W. BELL
DAILY NEWS RELIGION EDITOR
Msgr. Eugene Clark is still a priest with all the rights and duties of the office, and will remain one until the Vatican decides otherwise.
His resignation yesterday means he will not publicly celebrate Mass or carry out of the other sacramental duties of priests, among them hearing confessions, conducting baptisms and marriages, and anointing the sick.
Theologians said yesterday there is no barrier - except perhaps orders by Edward Cardinal Egan or higher church officials - to Clark's performing those rites privately, but it's highly unlikely he will do so.
Once ordained, a priest is a priest for life, and under all circumstances, unless the Pope returns him to the status of a layman, a process called laicization and sometimes called defrocking by rank-and-file Catholics.
More likely, theologians said, because Clark is 79 and four years past the church's retirement age, the Vatican will immediately accept his retirement.