I think if she goes to prison, she’s going to be treated like any other prisoner whether she’s stripped of her orders or not. Her lawyer might think that her status calls for her being placed in special populations (I doubt it, though, since she will probably be in a minimum security prison), and that would true whether her status as a bishop were past or current.
I’d worry more about juries. My cousin is a prosecutor in Chicago, and he once prosecuted a nun for vehicular manslaughter (she fell asleep at the wheel and ran through a pedestrian walkway). He says it would have been a slam-dunk if she hadn’t been a member of an order, but people were reluctant to convict a nun, because G-d might retaliate, and acquitted in about 20 minutes. She didn’t even belong to a sanctioned order, but some kind of unofficial, rogue order that is to real nuns what nuts in the woods with rifles and stockpiles of canned goods are to the real military.
Here’s a statement by the President of the House of Deputies, the rough equivalent of the Speaker of the House in the bicameral policy-making General Convention of the Episcopal Church: Home - Episcopal Journal
It is a beautifully written letter, I will grant her that. As an ex-catholic, I’m impressed that they can even conceive of the idea of “re-imagining” their church.
It’s a good letter, but does the Episcopal church as a whole really bear responsibility for the death of the bicyclist? Has this woman gotten away with lesser crimes that would have gotten her license revoked, if the church hadn’t done some backstage machinations? Or is it the case that if she weren’t a bishop, Mr. Palermo would have been killed by some drunk woman who wasn’t a bishop?
Is this comparable, for example, to the RC church’s systematic covering up of child molestations, or is this one woman who got drunk, had it end very, very badly, and it was just a coincidence that she had an unusual job?
From the contents of the letter, it appears the problem is not that a bishop was a drunkard, but that a drunkard was made bishop. I read the letter as an apology to the congregation, not to the family of the victim. Even if it’s the case that “Mr. Palermo would have been killed by some drunk woman who wasn’t a bishop,” at least in that scenario the entire church wouldn’t have become entangled in the tragedy.
None of it was pious disclaimers, but rather not jumping to conclusions. You know–or should know–that a conclusion should be based on evidence, especially in a legal matter.
This is a very odd news story. Was the guy not convicted of some form of homicide? The story says he was convicted of leaving the scene, though he apparently admitted that he had actually hit and killed the guy.
Also, it said " …who was arrested last year for his role in a hit-and-run that killed a carpenter …". For his role in a hit and run?!! Don’t you mean something like “for vehicular homicide”?
Then you have no sympathy for any human being on the planet, as panic is a fight or flight reaction. Everyone has the instinct to flee when they panic in a situation where fight is not possible.
Not in a civilized society, and as a nominally pinnacle member of civilized behavior, she behaved more abysmally than the average person.
I remember long ago reading a passage about how someone assumed priests etc. were automatically assured a place in heaven… only to be corrected by a priest who pointed out that since they were indoctrinated in all the rules, their gate was straiter than regular people. I think that applies here.
She knew she was doing wrong by drinking and driving (again), and compounded the problem by letting that lead to a more serious offense… and was more obligated than one of her parishoners to stand up to the moral demand. Cave men didn’t drive cars.
This I disagree with. If she’s delusional enough to be a bishop in a religion, any religion, who knows what mental processes contributed to her behavior. Maybe she thought it was all the will of God.