SCOTTISH PRIEST FACES DISCIPLINE FOR ATTACKING POPE, CARDINAL

GLASGOW (CWNews.com) - A Scottish priest on Monday was called in for a disciplinary meeting with his bishop after launching a stinging, public attack on Cardinal Thomas Winning of Glasgow and Pope John Paul II.

Father John Fitzsimmons, in a newspaper interview last week, accused the Holy Father of "tearing the Church apart" and attacked the Church's teachings on the male priesthood, contraception, and priestly celibacy. The week before, Father Fitzsimmons criticized Cardinal Winning in a television documentary, saying he lacked the support of Scottish Catholics and that he was being influence by the Opus Dei religious order.

Local newspapers reported that the papal nuncio to Britain, Archbishop Pablo Puente, in a meeting with British bishops last week, demanded that Father Fitzsimmons explain his behavior and issue a public apology. The priest was subsequently called in to a private meeting with Bishop John Mone of Paisley.

When asked before his disciplinary meeting if he would apologize, or risk suspension, Father Fitzsimmons said: "As to the first, I will not. As to the second, it's up to them. I am not prepared to renounce the substance of what I said, certainly not."

Critics of the priest expressed disappointment that it was his verbal attacks on the Pope and Cardinal Winning that prompted the disciplinary meeting, not his public rejection for the Church's teachings.

Bishop Mone and Father Fitzsimmons both said they had no comment on the content or outcome of Monday's meeting.

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