Theology Possibly an Impediment to Dismissing Priests; Ordination Considered for lifetime.(NATION)

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Byline: Larry Witham, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Graham Greene novel "The Power and the Glory" made famous the cowardly "whisky priest" in revolutionary Mexico who still redeemed people by giving them the holy sacrament central to Catholic faith.

Based on that same theology, some say, the U.S. bishops have covered up sexually abusive priests believing they still were men who could do God's work at Mass every day.

The 1940 novel was condemned by the Vatican in 1953, but its theme that "once a priest always a priest" may be shaken as the U.S. bishops consider the lifetime firing of hundreds of ordained men involved in sexual misconduct.

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