Mercy in Action: Vatican Defrocks a Whole Community
Their crime: They refused to hand over their schools to the Augustinian Province of Brazil. The Province was only created in 2013 by a merger of three groups: the Augustinian Vicariate of Castile (Spain), the Augustinian Delegation of Malta, and the Filipino Augustinians of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in Brazil.
From the very beginning, the Vicariate of Castile disagreed with how the merger was handled and refused to surrender their three schools in São Paulo and Goiânia with 9,300 students and other 19 institutions to the new Province.
Instead they changed the bylaws of the "Augustinian Society of Education and Assistance" which controls the schools withdrawing it successfully from any ecclesiastical influence.
The Province saw this as a declaration of war and threatened the priests with expulsion from the Order which happened in 2015. In August 2018 they were threatened with laicization and now "defrocked".
Spanish-born Father José Florencio Blanco Melon, 62, (37 years of priesthood) called the unappealable decision a surprise, “We thought there would be a dialogue process but this did not happen.”
Among the "defrocked" priests is 92-years-old Spanish-born Father César Rafael Rodríguez Martinez, who has lived 66 years as a priest, and Father Eduardo Flauzino Mendes, 47, the administrator of the three schools.
The known São Paulo judge José Roberto Nalini, 73, called the whole matter "a question of economic greed." Supporters of the priests collected 23,000 signatures in support of the religious.
Picture: © agostinianomendel.com.br, #newsXshcbxicpy
