DISSIDENT DEDHAM PRIEST DEFIES ARCHBISHOP ON ANTI-ICE CRECHE—DEMANDS FACE TO FACE MEETING
The dissident Dedham priest—Father Stephen Josoma, Pastor of Saint Susanna Parish—announced today that he would not remove a political message from his church’s Nativity scene, despite receiving a letter from the Archbishop of Boston, the Most Reverend Richard G. Henning, instructing him to do so.
Josoma had removed the figures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph from the creche, replacing them with a sign which read: ICE WAS HERE, implying that the Holy Family was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The priest is demanding a face to face meeting with the Archbishop. In a statement released today, Josoma said:
We are waiting for an opportunity of dialogue and clarity with Bishop Henning before reaching any final decisions.
Josoma claimed that the polticized Nativity display was not the real cause of divisiveness in this controversy.
Instead, he blamed it on the climate of polarization created by Donald Trump.
Upon ordination, Catholic priests, kneeling at the foot of the altar, make a solemn promise of obedience and respect to their bishop and his successors.
According to the Code of Canon Law, A parish is a certain community of the Christian faithful stably constituted in a particular church….under the authority of the diocesan bishop.
The Catholic Action League called the statement by Reverend Stephen Josoma “a willful violation of his ordination oath and a flagrant and contumacious act of disobedience to his lawful Ordinary.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment:
“Today, on the Solemn Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Father Stephen Josoma, through his defiance, compounded sacrilege with scandal.
Father Josoma is engaged in stalling tactics in the hope that his allies will mount a pressure campaign against the archdiocese.
He is playing with fire. The Archbishop has the authority to remove pastors, suspend priests from active ministry, deprive them of their faculties, suppress parishes, close churches—and given the legal structure of the archdiocese as a corporation sole—sell Saint Susanna’s.
The archbishop is Father Josoma’s ecclesiastical superior, his employer and his landlord.
Archbishop Henning should quickly disabuse Father Josoma of the misconception that priestly obedience entails a negotiation between a pastor and his bishop.”
Hi should be removed immediately. There is NO PLACE in the Church for politics especially a cause for supporting ILLEGAL ALIENS.
This is a betrayal of what a priest should be and act!
Yep! You’re right! The church should stay out of politics just like it did in Germany before WWII. It certainly made a better world by going along, to get along!
Fr. Josoma has a well-known record of dissent from Catholic teaching and has no business being pastor of a parish. He is a priest forever but his continuous dissent and political advocacy (illegal alliens aren’t his only “progressive” political cause) should disqualify him from any leadership position in the Church. As Catholic layfolk we are entitled to receive the authentic truths of the Faith in our parishes and – frankly – to be protected from the warped theories of dissenting ideologues!