NEW HAMPSHIRE
WRCB
Updated: Apr 07, 2017
By MICHAEL CASEY
Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Pope Francis has dismissed a Roman Catholic priest from New Hampshire who was convicted of stealing $300,000 from a hospital, a bishop and a deceased priest’s estate.
Monsignor Edward Arsenault, who served as the face of the church in the state during a sex abuse scandal, pleaded guilty to three theft charges in 2014. He was transferred Tuesday to home confinement and is up for parole Feb. 19, 2018.
The Diocese of Manchester said Friday that Arsenault was removed from the priesthood Feb. 28 and no longer has “faculties to act, function, or present himself as a priest.”
“Dismissing a priest from the clerical state is very serious and taken very seriously by the Holy See,” said Father Georges de Laire, the Diocese’s vicar for canonical affairs, who conveyed the decision to Arsenault on Thursday.
“It is not a decision that is reached lightly as it implies pain for the former cleric and those who may have been affected by him,” he said.
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