Suspended Priest to Face Dismissal Hearing

A suspended gay priest who voluntarily left the Roman Catholic Church was summoned to a rare church tribunal this week in Park Rapids, Minn., to consider his “dismissal from the clerical state.”

William Dorn Jr. used the closed-door hearing as a forum to speak out on what he sees as the church’s oppresson of homosexuals.

He did not challenge the charges against him, which accuse him of defection from the Catholic Church. He left the church voluntarily in 1987 after refusing the order of Bishop Victor Balke of the Crookston, Minn., diocese, to cease discussing homosexuality or ministering to gay men or lesbians. He has since joined the Episcopal Church and lives with a man in Minneapolis.

Father Michael Patnode, chancellor of the Crookston diocese, said the tribunal was prompted by Dorn’s public statements contradicting church doctrine and by his decision to live with another man.

“He promised to be obedient, and he promised to be celibate,” Patnode said when the tribunal was announced. “He wants to be a priest, but he doesn’t want to be a priest according to what he agreed to. He wants to be a priest on his own.”

Dorn invited automatic excommunication by his actions, Patnode said.

A three-judge panel is expected to rule against Dorn within three weeks, banning him from the priesthood forever and formalizing his excommunication.

“Homosexuality is not the issue here,” said Father Roger Grunhaus, a canon lawyer who served as the church’s prosecutor.

“The fact is that he left the church. That’s the charge. He has publicly taken leave of the Catholic Church and joined another church. He can’t be a priest in the Catholic Church.”