Father Jeremy Leatherby Excommunicated
Title: Accused Priest Excommunicated
Author: William Mahoney
In a statement published on Friday, Bp. Jaime Soto of Sacramento, California declared Fr. Jeremy Leatherby excommunicated for rejecting Francis’ papacy.
“By his words and actions, Fr. Leatherby has incurred a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication,” reads the statement. The statement explains that Leatherby “has violated my instructions by offering Mass and teaching publicly to a number of the faithful. He has instructed them against the legitimacy of His Holiness, Pope Francis.”
Bishop Soto clearly distinguishes between Leatherby’s excommunication and an “on-going canonical process concerning other alleged behaviors by Fr. Jeremy Leatherby in violation of priestly promises.”
Amorous Video
Not long before Bp. Soto’s statement, Fr. Leatherby accidentally sent to an unintended recipient a video of himself addressing a woman as “baby doll” and “my girl,” as well as telling her six times, “I love you.”
“Can I tell you something, though?” he asks rhetorically in the video. “I love that, without mascara, that you are still strikingly beautiful. I love that. I love it, like, a lot … a lot a lot. I loved it earlier when I saw you and you didn’t have it on and I loved it all night long.”
Bishop Soto suspended Leatherby in 2016 over allegations of sexual impropriety with a woman. But despite the suspension, Leatherby continued to celebrate illicit Masses and hear invalid confessions.
1 thought on “Accused Priest Excommunicated”
There are some misstatements in this article. The charge against Fr. Leatherby was “violating ministerial boundaries.” That is what should be stated in any article about this priest; it is wrong to translate that into “sexual impropriety” unless and until the charges are fully explained. Further, this article states that Fr. Leatherby “continued to celebrate Masses and hear invalid confessions.” In fact, he was always allowed to celebrate Mass with no more than one person present; the Masses with multiple persons present only began after California declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19. As Fr. Leatherby states in his letter, he felt that Canon Law freed him to celebrate Mass with more than one of the faithful assisting.
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