This is almost good news for the church at this point. "It's a grown up!!"

The Catholic Church has finally realized its goal of producing one non-child molesting sex offender priest The Holy See must be ecstatic. I wonder what they have planned for the next 2,000 years.

undercover ranger

The fuck?

If this guy had a stroke, the part of his brain that affects judgment could very well be impaired.

Sorry. The Catholic church pisses me off as much as anyone, but I just feel sorry for the man.

I'm sure this is the first time he's done this, and it's all because of those meddling gays!

Closeted and cruising in the park? Color me surprised.

If the church ever manages to wake up and live in the real world, where priests do have sex drives and aren't robots, maybe he could have gotten married and wouldn't have been out looking for discrete encounters in a park. It would certainly be a more stable, dare I say more (small c) conservative position.

Catholic Church: "It's so unfair to blame us for this kind of behaviour. If it wasn't for all that '60's "Free Love" and "women are people, too" mumbo-jumbo, all this priestly perversion never would have been exposed in the media - I mean happened."

@4, I don't think so.

Park cruising is a learned behavior of closet-cases (mostly). One doesn't accidentally cruise a park due to impaired judgement caused by a stroke. Park cruising actually has a fairly sophisticated set of customs and signals, and not something one does accidentally. Given his age, I'd guess it is more likely that he has been doing this for decades, and just never got caught before. If anything, I'd grant that the past stroke might have caused him to be more careless, and more likely to be caught. But I seriously doubt the stroke caused him to cruise a park in the first place.

Actually, certain strokes and other events can cause problems in this area.

Only a trained medical doctor with experience in this area could say for sure, not a "jury of his peers" who still think Angels exist and rode on Unicorns next to Jesus and the Apostles on Dinosaurs.

Why not replace the host with pickles or sausages. There might even be some straight atheists who would be drawn to attend church, or "discern a vocation." Or something.

More Catholic "moral values"! Hahahahahahahahahaha! Oh, stop, you're killing me!

On impairment from a stroke or dementia: that would be present as implusive behaivior and a lack of inhibitions, not seeking out an established cruising spot. Can organic brain diseases create unusual sexual desires? Yes, that's been documented in the case of some tumors. I can't think of any for stroke victims - just horny guys who used to have the common sense to keep their pants on.

It appears the Catholic church violated the HIPAA Privacy Rule which regulates the disclosure of Protected Health Information held by (among others) employer sponsored health plans just so they could present him as a priest with a illness rather than yet another priest who is a sick puppy.

I love the quote, ""The allegations, which do not involve a minor, come as a surprise to us," the archdiocese said" because allegations involving a minor AREN'T a surprise?

These closet cases in the bushes have no manners. I would be pretty irritated if some guy hauled his cock out at me while I was walking in the woods.

This is an example of how destructive the closet is. When a straight guy gets propositioned like this he does not distinguish in his mind between the creepy closet case with poor social skills and gays at large. Instead it is just "some gay dude pulled his cock out at me."