Denver, Aug 12, 2020: An excommunicated priest in the United States says he stands by his claim that Pope emeritus Benedict XVI is the true pope.
In addition to charges of schism, the priest is suspected of misconduct and improper relationships with at least two adult women; he confessed his love to one of them in a video message circulating online.
“I continue to regard Benedict as retaining the Office of Peter, as mysterious as that might be. Therefore, I do not regard Bergoglio as the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church,” Father Jeremy Leatherby wrote this week in an open letter to the Sacramento diocese.
Leatherby added that although he was already prohibited from public ministry, he had been celebrating Masses in recent months in private homes, offered “in union with Pope Benedict, not with Pope Francis. Many who have joined me hold, like I do, that Benedict remains the one true Pope.”
On Aug. 7, Sacramento’s Bishop Jaime Soto announced that “by his words and actions” Leatherby was “in a state of schism with the Roman Catholic Church.”
Soto declared that the priest had incurred a latae sententiae excommunication.
“This means that by his own volition he has separated himself from communion with the Roman Pontiff, Pope Francis, and other members of the Catholic Church,” the bishop said. He called on Leatherby to “repent of the harm he has inflicted on the Church.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/excommunicated-sacramento-priest-rejects-pope-francis-misconduct-allegations-32488