SANTA FE, N.M (Reuters) – A New Mexico family is suing their local Catholic church over a funeral Mass in which the priest allegedly said their relative was only a middling Catholic and going straight to hell.
Lawyers for the family of Ben Martinez said on Tuesday they had filed a lawsuit in June against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe and one of its priests.
Court papers filed last month say that Reverend Scott Mansfield said at Martinez’s funeral last year that the deceased was “living in sin”, “lukewarm in his faith” and that “the Lord vomited people like Ben out of his mouth to hell”.
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I wonder how they are going to prove that the priest was wrong? Oh I forgot, they hired lawyers; they are sure to have connections down there.
2 comments
They might not be able to prove him wrong, but — assuming their allegations are accurate — they might be able to prove pastoral malpractice. Since not even the Church “canonizes” the damned, what would possible give a priest the right to so “canonize” anyone as damned?
Kathy Shaidle from relapsedcatholic.blogspot.com has the best response:
“My question to the priest: Why did you permit/participate in a Catholic funeral for this gentleman, then? If he was a public, habitual sinner, just refuse to perform the ceremony. Of course, when the laity see divorced (rich) celebrities and convicted (rich) Mafia dons getting Catholic send-offs, we get a bit confused about what gives and what don’t. But hey, that’s what we pay YOU for, huh?
I’m the last one to adopt an “anything goes, play ‘My Way’ if you wanna” approach to Catholic funerals. But a little consistency would be nice after 2000 years.
Sounds like Father Chatty was more eager to spout off publicly than to express his reservations privately. So many priests are passive aggressive show-offs; looks like we got us another one.”