Gay Catholic Activists Convicted, But Not Sentenced
This was in the local news today. It seems too strange to be true.
WASHINGTON — A D.C. Superior Court judge convicted three Catholic gay activists of confronting Catholic bishops during their annual conference in D.C. late last year.
But the judge declined to sentence the three. Instead he told them to, “go in peace.”
According to the Washington Post, the group went to a D.C. hotel where several bishops were staying, wanting to know why they were denied communion at a service the day before. They were charged with unlawful entry after ignoring several requests to leave.
The Archdiocese of Washington said the three were misidentified as members of a group that had previously said they would use the sacred act as a means of protest.
Judge Mildred Edwards, herself a Catholic, said the denial of communion was an act of “tremendous violence.”
Dom hits the nail on the head over at his joint.
Have a gander at the comments of this post. Let’s look at the facts of this situation from the stand point of civil law rather than canon law. The matter that judge needed to issue a ruling on was that of the unlawful entry of these activists into a hotel. She found them guilty. I understand the judge is allowed to take mitigating circumstances under consideration when pronouncing a sentence. Clearly the judge went far beyond that. It would have been different, though still inappropriate, for her to say in her capacity as a judge, “You were wrongly denied communion.” She went far beyond that by stating that the priest or the Bishop who denied them Communion had commited an act of “tremendous violence.”