A meter maid in Brooklyn, New York charged Father Cletus Forson $115 as he rushed to save the soul of a dying woman on July 26. The woman’s daughter had called Fr Forson, 42, a priest in residence at Saint Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church, and said he must come immediately and help her elderly mother who was dying of the flu.
With no available parking at 9:30pm, Fr Forson displayed his "Clergy on Call" permit and rushed inside. He was there for twenty minutes and did not block any entrances.
"There were four cars behind me and three cars in front of me," Fr Forson told the New York Daily News. "But when I came out, I was the only car who got a ticket."
On July 28, Administrative Law Judge Michael Ciaravino found Fr Forson guilty, dismissing his appeal.
"If the sanctity of the law won’t bend for the needs of a dying person, I feel really sad," Fr Forson said. "It disturbs me as a priest and as a human being."
I can imagine this judge in Purgatory being told that there were a bunch of people praying for him, but they decided to dismiss their appeal and let him serve a full sentence.
9 comments
Stories like this really upset me! But your comment made me laugh 😉
I wish that I could believe that this kind of thing is a rarity. The judge was likely a lefty who is an atheist and therefore any work a priest would do is irrelevant to him.
“The judge was likely a lefty who is an
atheist and therefore any work a priest would
do is irrelevant to him.”
If only the priest’s efforts were irrelevant. If he were the only one in the group to be ticketed, it is clearly a case of profiling. Rather than irrelevant, I’d say the priest’s occupation was anathema to the judge.
Thank heaven for the Beatitudes!
In Christ’s peace and joy,
Robin
Sad. This story makes me sick.
Robin:
You are correct – it is profiling. Now if the priest had been a Muslim the media would be all over it, howling about the evils of profiling!
It’s Brooklyn. How about an Hasidic rabbi?
Ugh.
I didn’t think this sort of thing happened outside of Oklahoma.
Gosh, when I went to traffic court to contest a ticket, I saw several people who had illegally parked near a local hospital who just got a slap on the hand because of their extenuating circumstances. It’s terrible that this judge couldn’t be as understanding.
In all fairness, my brother is NYPD, and he says that even *he* wouldn’t be able to get out of a parking ticket in NYC. He says parking enforcement exists ONLY to write tickets, so if they think they can get away with it, you’re getting ticketed, and tough cookies.
There’s no way of knowing how long the other cars had been parked there and whether the parking enforcement guys ticketed all the ones there at the time. I lived in NY for the first 23 years of my life, and illegal parking is a way of life. You learn to park, get in and get out in five minutes. 20 minutes is asking for a ticket.