One Angry Ex-Priest, California Catholic Daily, April 5, 2011

One Angry Ex-Priest

California Catholic Daily
April 5, 2011

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=68251539-0c37-48c6-966a-05066a569c03

A former priest of the Oakland diocese who for the last year has showed up every Sunday outside Christ the Light Cathedral with a protest sign has written an opinion piece published by the Oakland Tribune in which he calls Bishop Salvatore Cordileone "obsessed" and says the "Catholic Church is in a state of collapse."

Tim Stier, who describes himself in the article as a "Catholic priest in voluntary exile from the Diocese of Oakland since March 15, 2005," left the active priesthood after 25 years, abandoning his post as pastor of Corpus Christi parish in Fremont. When Stier refused any new assignments, the diocese stopped paying his salary and cut off his health insurance and retirement benefits.

In news articles at the time he left the parish, Stier said he took the action as a symbol of solidarity with "those who have no voice in the Church" -- homosexuals, victims of clergy sexual abuse, and divorced Catholics. The final straw for Stier, according to press accounts, was what he called the Church's failure to address the root causes of the priest shortage, which include the discipline of clerical celibacy and the teaching that women cannot be ordained.

Stier continues to sound the same theme each week outside the Oakland cathedral. The sign he holds reads: "Structural reform now! Include the Excluded: Women, Abuse Survivors, Gay Persons."

In his article for the Tribune, Stier brings up the recent sex abuse scandal in Philadelphia, where four priests were arrested and 24 others removed from active ministry. Stier wrote that the Philadelphia scandal "makes clear that the unspeakable crimes against children and youth and their cover-up by bishops continue unabated."

"The Catholic Church is in a state of collapse due to an institutional culture defined by secrecy, elitism and denial," wrote Stier in the Tribune opinion piece. "When I listen to Catholic bishops of late, I find myself wondering what planet these men inhabit. The current bishop of the Oakland Diocese, Salvatore Cordileone, is obsessed with saving California from what he sees as the grave threat of gay marriage."

"For Bishop Cordileone or any bishop to pontificate on any topic remotely related to sex amounts to hypocrisy," wrote Stier.

The diocese, said Stier, has pending lawsuits involving two former priests accused of sexual misconduct with minors, and over the last five has paid more than $60 million to settle similar suits.

"Research shows that half of Catholic bishops and priests are not practicing celibacy at any given time," Stier wrote in the Tribune. "A high percentage of priests in the Oakland Diocese are closeted gay men while the Diocese publicly endorses the pseudo science that gay people can change their sexual orientation through a program called Courage."

Stier also criticizes "the rush to canonize Pope John Paul II" because of his possible role in the cover-up of priestly sexual abuse, the diocese's request that the faithful help pay for the new cathedral, which he claims breaks a previous promise, and says the diocese would be moribund "were it not for immigrants."

"Bishop Cordileone," wrote Stier, "would be better off listening to abuse survivors and others decimated by a structure of authority that is secretive, autocratic and dangerous."

Stier concludes his piece for the Tribune by asked others to join him this coming Sunday outside the cathedral "for the first anniversary of this weekly protest for structural reform in solidarity with those who suffer most from Catholic leadership's denial and criminality."