{"id":1588,"date":"2006-05-30T09:16:02","date_gmt":"2006-05-30T09:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/from-santa-rosa.html"},"modified":"2006-05-30T09:16:02","modified_gmt":"2006-05-30T09:16:02","slug":"from-santa-rosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/from-santa-rosa.html","title":{"rendered":"From Santa Rosa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Priest trouble:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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A Catholic priest in Sonoma has been dismissed following a report of sexual misconduct with a minor and the Sheriff’s Department has launched a criminal investigation, officials said Monday. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

The Rev. Xavier Ochoa, 67, assistant pastor of St. Francis Solano Parish, reportedly came forward and admitted a single incident involving a young male to Bishop Daniel Walsh, said Deirdre Frontczak, spokeswoman for the Santa Rosa diocese. Parishoners were informed of his removal over the weekend, she said. "Father Ochoa came to me voluntarily to inform me of a recent incident of sexual misconduct with a minor," the Bishop said in a written statement. "Consistent with diocesan policy, I have removed him from his duties as parochial vicar and have also removed his canonical faculties." <\/p>\n

[snip]<\/em><\/p>\n

Ochoa was ordained in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1969 and worked as a priest for 20 years among the Tarahumara Indians in the state of Chihuahua. In 1988 he came to Sonoma County, where he ministered mostly to Spanish-speaking Catholics, first as assistant pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Windsor and then at St. Francis in Sonoma. He became widely known in the 1990s for political activism, leading opposition to Proposition 187, which cut public benefits to illegal immigrants. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Priest trouble: A Catholic priest in Sonoma has been dismissed following a report of sexual misconduct with a minor and the Sheriff’s Department has launched a criminal investigation, officials said Monday. The Rev. Xavier Ochoa, 67, assistant pastor of St. Francis Solano Parish, reportedly came forward and admitted a single incident involving a young male…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Santa Rosa - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/from-santa-rosa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Santa Rosa - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Priest trouble: A Catholic priest in Sonoma has been dismissed following a report of sexual misconduct with a minor and the Sheriff’s Department has launched a criminal investigation, officials said Monday. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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