{"id":934029,"date":"2026-10-19T18:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/934029\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T18:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:24:14","slug":"vatican-upholds-excommunication-of-us-deacon-who-resigned-after-son-was-molested-by-priest-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/934029\/","title":{"rendered":"Vatican upholds excommunication of US deacon who resigned after son was molested by priest | Louisiana"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Roman Catholic church has upheld the excommunication<\/a> of a Louisiana<\/a> deacon who resigned from the clergy after a priest molested his son.<\/p>\n

Scott Peyton learned of the decision by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) \u2013 the Vatican entity in charge of Catholic clerical discipline \u2013 on Friday in a meeting with the bishop of the diocese of Lafayette, J Douglas Deshotel. The DDF cited technical grounds in rejecting Peyton\u2019s appeal, saying he had joined an Anglican congregation, \u201cpublished [that] fact \u2026 on social media\u201d and therefore refused to submit to the Catholic pope, who since May 2025 has been Leo XIV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis act of joining a separated faith community by its very nature is an act of refusal of submission to the Roman pontiff and a refusal of communion with the members of the church subject to him,\u201d the DDF said in documents shared with the Guardian by canon attorney Dawn Eden Goldstein, who represented Peyton in his appeal against his excommunication.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is for this reason that \u2026 excommunication is incurred by the very carrying out of the act itself,\u201d the DDF added.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement on Sunday, Goldstein said Peyton intends to appeal the DDF\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I am disappointed, I am not surprised,\u201d Peyton said in the statement, which also clarified that he had since moved on from the Anglican church to a nondenominational congregation. \u201cApparently, according to Bishop Deshotel, finding a faith community where my family can worship without reliving the trauma endured is a greater scandal to the Diocese of Lafayette than the sexual abuse of a child. I find that deeply troubling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian has approached the Lafayette diocese for comment.<\/p>\n

In appealing, Peyton argued that \u201cthere was no pastoral good to be accomplished\u201d by excommunicating him. He also said his wife and six children felt unwelcome in the Catholic church because of his excommunication, meaning it had \u201charmed the spiritual lives of eight Catholics\u201d in one fell swoop.<\/p>\n

News of Peyton\u2019s excommunication<\/a> earned international news headlines in March 2024, with many outlets characterizing the situation as a remarkably harsh consequence for a man whose son was sexually abused by a fellow Catholic clergyman.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Goldstein\u2019s statement said that Deshotel on Friday admitted that the abusive clergyman who preyed on Peyton\u2019s son \u2013 the imprisoned Michael Guidry \u2013 remained in the Catholic priesthood.<\/p>\n

Peyton said he understood Guidry was suspended from being able to publicly minister. He also cited comments Guidry, 83, made at a public hearing where he unsuccessfully requested parole, during which he talked about providing spiritual direction while incarcerated and considering himself to still be a priest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the scandal,\u201d Peyton said in his statement on Sunday. \u201cThat\u2019s the contradiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peyton in 2012 was ordained into the diocese of Lafayette \u2013 about 135 miles (217km) west of New Orleans \u2013 as a deacon. (Deacons are largely similar to priests, though the former can be married and the latter cannot.)<\/p>\n

In 2018, Guidry confessed to molesting Peyton\u2019s teenage son, Oliver, while they ministered together at St Peter\u2019s church in Morrow, Louisiana<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Authorities arrested Guidry, who ultimately pleaded guilty to abusing Oliver Peyton, an altar server. Guidry was later treated to a farewell lunch by his church \u2013 for which the Lafayette diocese was forced to apologize<\/a> \u2013 and received a seven-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Peyton said he, his wife, Letitia, and Oliver secured a $350,000 out-of-court settlement from Lafayette\u2019s diocese. The Peytons went on to become advocates for clergy survivors. And in December 2023, Peyton decided he was no longer a good fit to serve as a Lafayette diocese deacon, resigned and temporarily joined an Anglican congregation, all of which he disclosed on social media.<\/p>\n

Deshotel then issued a decree about three months later telling Peyton he was considered to have severed ties with the Catholic church and had been excommunicated with immediate effect.<\/p>\n

Pious Catholics view excommunication as the most severe punishment there is, something doled out to essentially shock sinners into rethinking behavior before death condemns them to eternal damnation.<\/p>\n

The punishment prevents those who incur it from engaging in certain sacraments, such as holy communion<\/a>, which is central to the Catholic faith. And Peyton was left to join history\u2019s other Catholic excommunicates including Henry VIII<\/a> (over a divorce and remarriage), Martin Luther<\/a> (for initiating the Protestant Reformation) and Napoleon Bonaparte<\/a> (for annexing to France the Papal States in Italy).<\/p>\n

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Peyton filed a formal appeal in May 2024, starting a process that generally should be completed in three months. But it wasn\u2019t until October 2024 \u2013 five months later \u2013 that Peyton was notified that the DDF was in receipt of his appeal material and reviewing it.<\/p>\n

The DDF then rejected Peyton\u2019s appeal on 22 May, about two years after he filed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis [body] does not fail to note \u2026 that the circumstances surrounding this situation are indeed tragic,\u201d the DDF\u2019s documents said. But in joining an Anglican congregation, \u201cdeacon Peyton intentionally separated himself\u201d from the Catholic church, and his excommunication was proper, the DDF\u2019s documents said.<\/p>\n

The DDF said it still hoped that there could eventually be reconciliation with Peyton.<\/p>\n

Peyton was presented with the rejection on Friday, according to the DDF documents. Peyton; the DDF\u2019s prefect, Cardinal V\u00edctor Manuel Fern\u00e1ndez; and its secretary, Archbishop John Joseph Kenney, signed the documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough my client absolutely rejects the DDF\u2019s decision \u2026 he notes that the DDF shows far more sensitivity to the harms that his family has suffered than Bishop Deshotel ever has,\u201d Goldstein said in her statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The US\u2019s reckoning with the worldwide, decades-old Catholic clergy abuse crisis all but began within the Lafayette diocese<\/a> when one of its priests, Gilbert Gauthe, pleaded guilty in 1985 to molesting several boys he met through his ministry.<\/p>\n

In March, Louisiana state prosecutors charged<\/a> a Lafayette diocese priest, Korey LaVergne, with felony indecent behavior with a juvenile in connection with allegations that he inappropriately touched a child. He later pleaded not guilty, and the case remained unresolved as of Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Lafayette news outlet KADN reported<\/a> in July that the local diocese had hired the well-known bankruptcy attorney Frank LoCoco.<\/p>\n

But, as of Peyton\u2019s excommunication-related meeting with Deshotel, the Lafayette diocese was not among the more than 40 US Catholic religious institutions that had filed for federal bankruptcy protection amid the litigious and financial fallout of the worldwide church\u2019s clergy molestation scandal.<\/p>\n

In the US, call or text the Childhelp<\/a> abuse hotline on 800-422-4453 or visit their website<\/a> for more resources and to report child abuse or DM for help. For adult survivors of child abuse, help is available at ascasupport.org<\/a>. In the UK, the NSPCC<\/a> offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac<\/a>) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline<\/a> on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation<\/a> on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helpline International<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Roman Catholic church has upheld the excommunication of a Louisiana deacon who resigned from the clergy after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-934029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}