(OSV Information) — A everlasting deacon within the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, whose then-teenage son was molested by the priest he as soon as served alongside, is now excommunicated after leaving his ministry, as a result of he formally left the Catholic Church, in keeping with the latest decree written by his bishop.
“I’m very shocked — I assumed sooner or later that they may laicize me, however excommunication … that thought by no means crossed my thoughts,” Deacon Scott Peyton, who was ordained in 2012 and had served till December 2023, informed OSV Information. He offered OSV Information a digital copy of the March 13 letter he had obtained from Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel of Lafayette.
The doc — printed on the bishop’s letterhead, signed by each Bishop Deshotel and the diocesan chancellor, and marked with the diocesan seal — acknowledged Deacon Peyton’s Dec. 4, 2023, e mail stating what the deacon referred to as his intention to resign from the diaconate and depart the Catholic Church.
“The ache and struggling endured by the victims (of clergy sexual abuse), our household, and most significantly our son, coupled with what seems to be a systemic failure in addressing and stopping such heinous acts, have left me disillusioned and unable to reconcile my dedication to the Church with my conscience,” Deacon Peyton wrote.
In his decree, Bishop Deshotel mentioned that Deacon Peyton had “de iure” been faraway from all ecclesiastical workplaces. The bishop declared Deacon Peyton “irregular for the train of the sacred order of the diaconate,” in keeping with canons 1044 and 1041, and eliminated his schools to perform as a cleric. The bishop added he would inform the Vatican’s Dicastery for Clergy “and await additional steering.”
Bishop Deshotel mentioned he “should additionally sadly declare” that Deacon Peyton had “incurred the ‘latae sententiae’ censure of excommunication,” efficient on the day the deacon obtained the bishop’s letter.
OSV Information positioned a number of requests March 21 and 22 for remark from the Diocese of Lafayette on Deacon Peyton’s excommunication and is awaiting a response.
In contrast to a “ferendae sententiae” canonical penalty, which isn’t binding till it’s formally imposed on an offender, a “latae sententiae” excommunication is “incurred routinely upon the fee of an offense” particularly prohibited underneath canon legislation, akin to apostasy, heresy, schism and abortion.
Bishop Deshotel mentioned the excommunication had been “consistent with the earliest Councils of the Church” citing canon 1364.1 and the deacon’s “written resolution … to ‘sever’ ties with the Catholic Church.”
A canon lawyer, talking on situation of anonymity as he was not acquainted with the complete particulars of Deacon Peyton’s case, informed OSV Information {that a} Catholic formally becoming a member of a non-Catholic church would thereby commit an act of schism and set off the automated “latae sententiae” excommunication prescribed underneath canon 1364.
Writing on Fb March 17, Deacon Peyton shared that on Jan. 21, 2024, “we formally joined Trinity Anglican Church!” He included a photograph of himself together with relations standing earlier than the altar of the Anglican church, which is positioned in Lafayette.
Trinity Anglican Church’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Peter Johnston, confirmed their occupation, telling OSV Information by e mail that “the Peyton household was formally obtained into the Anglican Church by our Bishop on Sunday, January twenty first.”
Deacon Peyton informed OSV Information his household’s transfer to Trinity Anglican Church — which is an hour’s drive from their house — was an effort to “go someplace we weren’t recognized and that wasn’t the Catholic Church, simply to have the ability to get rooted again in being Christ-centered and to be targeted on our personal therapeutic spiritually.”
The deacon mentioned in his Dec. 4 letter that “the magnitude of those revelations [of clergy sexual abuse] has deeply shaken my religion and belief within the establishment to which I’ve devoted a good portion of my life.
“This resolution is just not a rejection of my religion in God or my dedication to residing a life guided by Christian ideas,” Deacon Peyton wrote. “As an alternative, it displays a conscientious objection to the way in which the Church has dealt with circumstances of sexual abuse, and a want to distance myself from an establishment that, at present, falls wanting the values it professes.”
Deacon Peyton informed OSV Information that Bishop Deshotel had personally replied to him by e mail Dec. 5, 2023 — a digital copy of which OSV Information has obtained — saying he was “unhappy” to obtain the information and promising to recollect Deacon Peyton throughout his prayers and Plenty.
“Sacramentally, you’re a Deacon although you select to not train your ministry,” mentioned the bishop within the e mail. “Please be at liberty to name if I can ever be of help.”
Deacon Peyton mentioned he was “more than happy” with the bishop’s Dec. 5 response, which he referred to as “pastoral.” However since then, Deacon Peyton mentioned, he “hadn’t heard a phrase from him (Bishop Deshotel) or anybody else till … I bought the (March 13) letter within the mail.”
In 2018, Deacon Peyton’s son Oliver revealed that he had been molested as a 16-year-old three years earlier by Father Michael Guidry, the pastor on the time of St. Peter Catholic Church in Morrow, Louisiana. Oliver Peyton acknowledged the priest had plied him with alcohol at St. Peter’s rectory and molested him whereas he was incapacitated. Oliver Peyton’s identify was disclosed in a 2018 lawsuit and has appeared in a number of media accounts of the proceedings, alongside along with his picture.
In March 2019, Father Guidry pleaded responsible to little one molestation, having beforehand claimed he couldn’t recall the abuse, and later asserting the teenager had consumed his personal alcohol and had initiated the sexual contact. The priest was sentenced the next month to seven years in jail, together with three years of probation, in keeping with media experiences.
Now 81, Father Guidry was briefly launched on an emergency enchantment throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and later returned to jail along with his request for early launch unanimously denied by the state’s parole board in August 2021.
In a 2019 interview with native media, Deacon Peyton’s spouse, Letitia Peyton, mentioned her household had recognized Father Guidry “for 12 years.”
She mentioned, “He gave the sacraments to our children. Scott stood subsequent to him as he consecrated the Eucharist each Sunday, and but, (Father Guidry) knew what he did to our son.”
The household settled a civil lawsuit towards the Diocese of Lafayette in April 2021, with the diocese issuing an announcement on Could 7, 2021, saying it had discovered the allegations towards Father Guidry credible and formally apologizing to the household.
Father Guidry seems on the diocese’s record of credibly accused monks.
The timing of his resolution to depart the diaconate and the church is one thing “I’m most likely nonetheless working via,” mentioned Deacon Peyton, a former little one welfare specialist and parole officer who serves as a regional and state director for Proper On Crime, a nationwide marketing campaign of the Texas Public Coverage Basis that seeks conservative prison justice reforms.
“I don’t assume there’s only one explicit factor … in all honesty, it’s one thing I most likely ought to have performed from day one, after my son got here ahead (in regards to the abuse),” Peyton informed OSV Information. “However I needed to present every little thing an opportunity. … We tried to undergo the motions of going to Mass, persevering with to be a deacon and be energetic in ministry.”
However “because the years went on,” Deacon Peyton mentioned, he watched his son “have good days and unhealthy days.” He additionally was seeing “our household starting to lose religion in God,” with the “establishment of the church … principally tearing our religion aside.”
Deacon Peyton mentioned that had the abuse not taken place inside the church, “if something traumatic had occurred to our household, we’d have been speaking with the monks … (and) church members, counting on our non secular skill to tug us via issues.
“When the church causes that harm, it’s so onerous to do it,” Deacon Peyton mentioned. “I got here to a degree the place I didn’t see the diocese studying from what had occurred to our son.”
In his March 13 decree, Bishop Deshotel wrote, “A bishop by no means needs to speak a censure to anybody.
“I’m conscious that your loved ones has suffered a trauma however the reply doesn’t lie in leaving the Most Holy Eucharist,” he continued. “We aren’t Catholics as a result of the Church on earth is ideal however as a result of the Lord has entrusted us to a thriller higher than ourselves, which He established because the means to our salvation.”
“The censures of the Church,” he added, “are meant to be medicinal, maybe as a lot for many who impose them as for many who are topic to them. It’s with this goal that I mournfully should declare them.”
Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV Information. Observe her on X (previously Twitter) at @GinaJesseReina.
