{"id":8178,"date":"2004-01-14T09:02:11","date_gmt":"2004-01-14T09:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html"},"modified":"2004-01-14T09:02:11","modified_gmt":"2004-01-14T09:02:11","slug":"virginia_priest_pleads_guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Priest pleads guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Had denied any wrongdoing for years, now pleads guilty <\/a> (which is not – forgive me lawyer readers if I get it wrong – an admission of guilt as we understand it, but an admission that based on the evidence, a judge and jury could find him guilty. But still)<\/p>\n

Parishioners shocked, but still…well, you can write the rest of the sentence<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While some parishioners said they did not know how to react to the pleas, some continued to express support for their priest.<\/p>\n

They said the long months since the allegations surfaced have not been easy.<\/p>\n

“It’s been difficult, but it has brought the parish closer together,” said Roseanna Falco, a member of the parish since it was founded. “He’s taught us that it is our church . . . that we are the church.”<\/p>\n

Falco said Leonard is an inspirational priest.<\/p>\n

“His homilies are powerful. It really makes you want to go to church. You want to be there so you can hear,” she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, maybe there’s hope for the parish yet. As this article describes it, <\/a> the Diocese of Richmond isn’t exactly rushing to hand Leonard any consequences of his action. VOTF has registered its displeasure, and good for them. <\/p>\n

Two years down the line, we might think that the story is winding down, but it’s not at all. There have been a few convictions of priest-abusers this week, a few suspensions, and several more lawsuits filed around the country, as readers of the Abuse Tracker<\/a> well know. And during this time, our leaders mostly pat themselves and each other on the back for compliance. Ah, well. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Had denied any wrongdoing for years, now pleads guilty (which is not – forgive me lawyer readers if I get it wrong – an admission of guilt as we understand it, but an admission that based on the evidence, a judge and jury could find him guilty. But still) Parishioners shocked, but still…well, you can…<\/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-8178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nVirginia Priest pleads guilty - 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\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Virginia Priest pleads guilty - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Had denied any wrongdoing for years, now pleads guilty (which is not – forgive me lawyer readers if I get it wrong – an admission of guilt as we understand it, but an admission that based on the evidence, a judge and jury could find him guilty. But still) Parishioners shocked, but still…well, you can…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-01-14T09:02:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Virginia Priest pleads guilty - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Virginia Priest pleads guilty - Via Media","og_description":"Had denied any wrongdoing for years, now pleads guilty (which is not – forgive me lawyer readers if I get it wrong – an admission of guilt as we understand it, but an admission that based on the evidence, a judge and jury could find him guilty. But still) Parishioners shocked, but still…well, you can…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2004-01-14T09:02:11+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html","name":"Virginia Priest pleads guilty - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-01-14T09:02:11+00:00","dateModified":"2004-01-14T09:02:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/virginia_priest_pleads_guilty.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Virginia Priest pleads guilty"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. 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. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}