{"id":7532,"date":"2004-04-07T15:28:35","date_gmt":"2004-04-07T15:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/04\/arko_fesses_up.html"},"modified":"2004-04-07T15:28:35","modified_gmt":"2004-04-07T15:28:35","slug":"arko_fesses_up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/04\/arko_fesses_up.html","title":{"rendered":"Arko Fesses Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Father Arko pleads guilty, gets his suspended sentence<\/a><\/p>\n

An unrepentant Rev. Richard Arko pleaded guilty Tuesday to growing marijuana in a closet in his rectory, saying he hoped that someday it would not be a crime.<\/p>\n

“I strongly believe in the benefits of marijuana and its use for medical purposes,” he said when asked by Summit County Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cosgrove why he had jeopardized everything he had worked so hard for by cultivating the drug. “For some time I have seen those benefits, and they are very helpful.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Father Arko pleads guilty, gets his suspended sentence An unrepentant Rev. Richard Arko pleaded guilty Tuesday to growing marijuana in a closet in his rectory, saying he hoped that someday it would not be a crime. “I strongly believe in the benefits of marijuana and its use for medical purposes,” he said when asked by…<\/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-7532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nArko Fesses Up - 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\/2004\/04\/arko_fesses_up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arko Fesses Up - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Father Arko pleads guilty, gets his suspended sentence An unrepentant Rev. 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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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