Diocese of Toledo Announces Two Priests Dismissed from the Clerical State
The Congregation for the Clergy recently informed Bishop Daniel Thomas that Melvin Thomas Verhoff and Michael Patrick McLaughlin have been dismissed from the clerical state and dispensed from all obligations arising from sacred ordination, including that of celibacy, through the application of Special Faculty III, a faculty granted to the Congregation for the Clergy in 2009.
Special Faculty III is applied to clerics, who having freely abandoned ministry for a period of more than five consecutive years and who, after careful verification of the facts, insofar as this is possible, persist in such freely chosen and illicit absence from the ministry. After examining the case, the same Congregation by the authority of the Roman Pontiff declares their dismissal from the clerical state, with dispensation from the obligations consequent to ordination, including that of celibacy.
Posted June 10, 2022 at 9:58 am