Late last month, the LA Times ran a story about Stephanie Collopy's request that a Portland, OR judge order an increase in child support payments from the father of her 12-year old son. Collopy is 38 years old, single and unemployed; her son has chronic asthma and allergies. The boy's father, Arturo Uribe pays $323/month in child support and doesn't carry his son on the health insurance policy provided by his employer. Uribe is a Roman Catholic priest who was a seminarian when he fathered the boy. Uribe's priestly vows include a vow of poverty, as such the judge was unable to order an increase in child support but did specifically request Uribe to ask the church if an exception could be made to allow the boy to be added to the health insurance policy.
To make matters worse that significantly above average woman, CE Petro, uncovered
that the archdioscese took an unconventional approach after the child was born:
Like other women whose children were fathered by Catholic priests, Collopy, 38, could get only limited help from the legal system, which decides child support based on a parent's income. Although dioceses and orders often have considerable wealth, most Catholic priests — especially those in religious orders — make little or no money. Their living expenses are paid for by the church.It's bad enough a man who fathered a child was permitted to intentionally take a job with an order that required a vow of poverty that would allow him to avoid his parental responsibilities.
Canon, or church, law didn't help Collopy either. It is silent on financial support for children fathered by priests. Still, several Catholic scholars said religious orders, such as the Redemptorists, should be guided by higher standards when it comes to providing for children. The Redemptorists are an order of missionaries, priests and brothers whose "special mission," according to its website, is "preaching the word of God to the poor."
To make matters worse that significantly above average woman, CE Petro, uncovered
that the archdioscese took an unconventional approach after the child was born:
In 1994, then-Archbishop of Portland William Levada offered a simple answer for why the archdiocese shouldn't have been ordered to pay the costs of raising a child fathered by a church worker at a Portland, Ore., parish.
In her relationship with Arturo Uribe, then a seminarian and now a Whittier priest, the child's mother had engaged "in unprotected intercourse … when [she] should have known that could result in pregnancy," the church maintained in its answer to the lawsuit.
I wonder what the child's father was doing at the time, saying novena's?
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