{"id":454657,"date":"2026-09-05T16:26:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T16:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/454657\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T16:26:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T16:26:55","slug":"from-sacramento-to-the-end-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/454657\/","title":{"rendered":"From Sacramento to the End of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto issued a canonical warning<\/a> on June 1, 2026, to retired Deacon David Leatherby Jr. of his diocese. In the decree, the bishop said he had been informed that Deacon Leatherby was cooperating with illicit Masses celebrated in nearby Placer County by his son, Jeremy Leatherby \u2014 excommunicated for schism in August 2020<\/a> and returned to the lay state later that year<\/a> \u2014 and urged the deacon to stop. Soto warned that if the deacon continued, the bishop would begin a formal process that could lead to \u201cthe imposition of just canonical penalties, including removal from the clerical state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deacon Leatherby sent his reply<\/a> on August 22, 2026, rejecting the legitimacy of Pope Leo XIV and Soto\u2019s authority. \u201cSince you recognize Leo as your pope,\u201d he wrote, \u201cI cannot in good conscience place myself under your spiritual authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days later, he emailed Soto\u2019s decree, his reply, and a 17-page document entitled \u201cAn Explanation of the Times We Live In\u201d<\/a> to his mailing list.<\/p>\n

In the document, Deacon Leatherby lays out an apocalyptic and conspiratorial vision of the present state of the Catholic Church and the world. He claims that the Church is experiencing the \u201cGreat Apostasy\u201d foretold in Scripture, paralleling Christ\u2019s Passion, and repeatedly describes the Church led by Pope Leo as a \u201cfalse church\u201d under Satan\u2019s control. Deacon Leatherby\u2019s narrative is rooted in alleged private revelations, lengthy quotes from purported Marian messages, and a series of claims about widespread corruption and immorality in the hierarchy.<\/p>\n

Together, the documents offer a view of what has taken shape in the six years since Jeremy Leatherby was laicized and withdrew from public view<\/a>: a congregation and deliverance ministry preparing for the end times, convinced that the visible Church has been replaced with an evil counterfeit. Two self-published books help explain the beliefs sustaining it.<\/p>\n

A Scandal in Sacramento<\/p>\n

Ordained in 2006 after studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Jeremy Leatherby built up a large following in the decade that followed. He was pastor of Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Sacramento, came from one of the region\u2019s best-known Catholic families \u2014 the Leatherbys own the Leatherby\u2019s Family Creamery<\/a> ice cream parlors \u2014 and led a popular healing and deliverance ministry that attracted Catholics throughout the region.<\/p>\n

But in March 2016, Soto removed him from active ministry and placed him on administrative leave. The diocese had received an allegation that Jeremy had violated ministerial boundaries with an adult woman.<\/p>\n

Many parishioners and members of the Leatherby family rejected that explanation, and they began a four-year campaign to return him to parish ministry. As Where Peter Is (WPI) reported in August 2020<\/a>, Church Militant ran several articles after his removal presenting his side of the story. An organization called \u201cSt. Joseph\u2019s Battalion\u201d took up his cause, labeling him \u201cthe Dry Martyr of Sacramento\u201d and posting dozens of videos on YouTube calling for his restoration and for supporters to \u201ctake back the Diocese of Sacramento.\u201d A petition to reinstate him gathered hundreds of signatures. Protesters regularly gathered outside the chancery<\/a>, among them Jeremy\u2019s grandfather, the late David Leatherby Sr., founder of the creamery.<\/p>\n

In August 2018, journalist Katy Grimes offered an alternative narrative in an article<\/a> and a follow-up<\/a>: Jeremy\u2019s removal from ministry was retaliation for his father, Deacon David Leatherby Jr., reporting alleged sexual misconduct by other priests. Church Militant<\/a> also reported a version of this account. In 2020, the Diocese of Sacramento denied that Jeremy\u2019s removal was retaliation<\/a>, telling Catholic News Agency that the claim was \u201cnot true.\u201d<\/p>\n

The long delay between Jeremy\u2019s removal and a final decision regarding his status became central to the campaign to defend him. In a 2018 letter to priests, the diocese\u2019s vicar general wrote<\/a> that assembling an independent panel had taken \u201clonger than we would have liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

After public Masses were suspended in March 2020 due to COVID-19, Jeremy began celebrating Mass in private, despite the restrictions on his ministry. His following in 2020 was estimated at roughly 350 people<\/a>. He also began saying Pope Benedict\u2019s name in the Eucharistic Prayer rather than Francis\u2019s, on the theory that Benedict\u2019s 2013 resignation was invalid, and he omitted Soto\u2019s name from the Eucharistic Prayer as well.<\/p>\n

In an August 6, 2020, statement, while still suspended, Jeremy justified his unauthorized ministry by arguing that the pandemic<\/a> constituted a \u201cstate of emergency\u201d in which even laicized priests could be morally obliged to administer the sacraments. He also suggested that Francis might be the head of a \u201ccounter church,\u201d<\/a> invoking warnings he attributed to Fulton Sheen, John Paul II, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigan\u00f2, the now-excommunicated former papal nuncio to the United States.<\/p>\n

Bishop Soto issued a warning to Jeremy Leatherby on August 3, 2020. Then, on August 7, the diocese announced that he had incurred automatic excommunication for schism \u2014 his break with the pope and the Church in communion with him. That declaration was separate from the unresolved misconduct case. His supporters treated it as further proof of persecution.<\/p>\n

Reporting that month also described a video message \u2014 sent, Jeremy said, to the wrong contact after he had been drinking \u2014 in which he called a woman \u201cbaby doll\u201d and \u201cmy girl\u201d and told her repeatedly that he loved her.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Herald published an interview with a woman who accused Jeremy of abuse; Where Peter Is summarized her account at the time<\/a>. She described ritualized encounters she called the \u201cMary Magdalen Routine.\u201d She said he cut off her hair to mark her vow of obedience to him as a priest. Jeremy admitted boundary violations but denied sexual contact<\/a> with her.<\/p>\n

The National Catholic Reporter<\/a> and other outlets<\/a> published additional accounts. A former parishioner told Catholic News Agency that Jeremy used women\u2019s loyalty to him as their spiritual director to manipulate and abuse them.<\/p>\n

On September 10, 2020, Pope Francis granted Jeremy\u2019s request to return to the lay state, made in August; the decision was publicly announced that November. Catholic News Agency reported that the canonical case ended without a verdict<\/a>. Soto wrote to the diocese<\/a> that he had moral certitude that Jeremy had engaged in conduct against the sixth commandment with multiple women under the auspices of spiritual direction, and called for a diocesan day of fasting and reparation.<\/p>\n

The Bishop\u2019s Warning to Deacon Leatherby<\/p>\n

Soto\u2019s short, notarized decree records that the diocese granted Deacon Leatherby\u2019s retirement \u201cwith no ministerial faculties\u201d on May 10, 2021. In it, Soto states that he has been informed that the deacon is cooperating with his son\u2019s illicit Masses in Placer County, immediately northeast of Sacramento. Retirement did not remove Deacon Leatherby from the clerical state. Soto cites canon 209, the obligation to remain in communion with the Church, and canon 273, the obligation of clerics to obey the pope and their bishop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge you to desist from this defiant practice,\u201d he writes. \u201cRepent of this sinful and scandalous conduct. You are offending the Lord Jesus and wounding His Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. You are leading other men and women in error, depriving them of the mercy and grace of Holy Mother Church.\u201d The decree forbids Deacon Leatherby from any ministerial activity that \u201cundermines the Catholic communion with the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV,\u201d and Soto closes by encouraging him toward \u201ca life reconciled to the Roman Pontiff\u201d and assuring him of his \u201cabiding fraternal regard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Deacon\u2019s Response<\/p>\n

Deacon Leatherby\u2019s reply, dated August 22, is addressed to Soto but written, he says explicitly, \u201cnot only to you, but also for anyone who may eventually encounter your spurious accusations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reply does not address whether Deacon Leatherby is assisting at his laicized son\u2019s Masses, but returns to the circumstances of his 2021 retirement. The deacon wrote that Soto \u201cabruptly and without canonical process\u201d removed his faculties and struck his name from the diocesan directory of retired clergy, \u201cas if my 10+ years of service in the diocese counted for nothing.\u201d Deacon Leatherby calls the bishop\u2019s professed \u201cabiding fraternal regard\u201d \u201csimply a lie.\u201d A bishop who meant it, he argues, would have picked up the phone. \u201cI believe they reveal who you are, a wolf in shepherd\u2019s clothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deacon Leatherby goes on to accuse Soto and \u201cother corrupt men in the hierarchy\u201d of denying perennial doctrine, \u201cembracing the homosexual lifestyle,\u201d restructuring the Church into \u201ca Synodal deformation,\u201d \u201cworshipping the Pachamama earth goddess,\u201d abrogating the traditional Mass, and driving out faithful priests.<\/p>\n

Deacon Leatherby claims that those who remain in communion with what he calls \u201cusurpers\u201d of the Chair of Peter \u201cset themselves outside the true Church. They are in a de facto state of schism although they may not realize it.\u201d He says that submitting to Soto\u2019s authority would \u201cjeopardize my salvation\u201d and asks the bishop not to correspond with him further.<\/p>\n

Deacon Leatherby also offers his bishop pastoral care in return. \u201cOh, how much anger and rage consume you,\u201d he writes. \u201cYou must have suffered greatly at the hands of men in your past to rationalize such debased treatment of others.\u201d He urges Soto to repent and return to \u201cthe faith of your youth.\u201d He suggests that the bishop turn to Jeremy for spiritual guidance, writing, \u201cMy son can and will help you.\u201d Addressing Soto by his first name, he adds: \u201cJaime, I desire your salvation\u2026and I forgive you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Manifesto<\/p>\n

In his reply to Bishop Soto, Deacon Leatherby includes a QR code that links to \u201cAn Explanation of the Times We Live In,\u201d<\/a> a 17-page document dated August 15, 2026. The essay lays out his religious worldview.<\/p>\n

The essay begins with memories of his past. Thirty-five years ago, he writes, he experienced a life-changing conversion during a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. Just over a year after that pilgrimage, a member of a small prayer group to which he belonged began receiving what the group understood as messages from the Virgin Mary by \u201cinterior locution.\u201d The messages continued for nearly four years. Deacon Leatherby claims that \u201ca number of priests-theologians \u2026 found no errors in the messages and nothing contrary to the Catholic Faith,\u201d and, although none declared them supernatural, they \u201cfound the messages edifying to the faith and spiritually profound.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the second page of the essay, he quotes from one of these messages, dated December 2, 1992, which warns that \u201cThe time is not far off when as my Son was hung from the cross, so will His Church be.\u201d The message says that some Catholics will remain united with Mary at the foot of the cross. It continues: \u201cBut most of my children, like the Apostles, will flee. They will flee out of fear. They will flee out of misunderstanding\u2026and many will flee out of disgust and anguish\u2026for they will feel that the Church has failed them\u2026like the Apostles felt.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Deacon Leatherby, more than two decades passed before the purported messages resumed. Around ten years ago, he writes, \u201cthe messages recommenced, not in identical fashion but in a variety of ways and more expansively.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in 2017, he says that they received a message that Francis was a false pope. Toward the end of 2019, another purported locution said that Benedict, who left office in 2013, was still the true pope. Deacon Leatherby identifies the suspension of public Masses on March 17, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic as a decisive event \u2014 explaining his belief that \u201cfrom that moment onward to attend a Mass celebrated in communion with Pope Francis, I would be committing the sin of schism, because Francis was leading a schismatic church.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the manifesto, Deacon Leatherby claims that later events and conspiracy theories were predicted by the group\u2019s purported revelations. He lists what the group says it knew in advance: \u201cEpstein Island, the Covid hoax, Adrenochrome, the Global Cabal.\u201d He describes a \u201cNetwork\u201d of sexually active homosexual clergy and repeats a claim that Catholic Charities\u2019 immigration work is a conduit for child trafficking. He cites an unnamed Chicago attorney\u2019s claim that three American seminaries function as human-trafficking pipelines.<\/p>\n

The essay also presents the deacon\u2019s assessment of the state of the world. Upon Benedict\u2019s death at the end of 2022, Deacon Leatherby writes, \u201cthe true Church is now in the wilderness\u201d \u2014 the woman clothed with the sun who flees to a place prepared by God \u201cfor twelve hundred and sixty days.\u201d He quotes St. Hilary of Poitiers urging fourth-century Catholics to abandon their churches for the woods and caverns rather than submit to an Arian bishop: \u201cSafer to me are the mountains, the woods, lakes, prisons, and deep caverns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deacon Leatherby also cites purported messages from the Mission of Divine Mercy in Canyon Lake, Texas, as confirmation of his own prayer group\u2019s beliefs. One message, dated July 10, 2026<\/a>, blames \u201cthe usurpation of the Chair of Peter\u201d for poisoning the Church and describes faithful shepherds gathering their flocks \u201cin the wilderness.\u201d On August 14 \u2014 the day before the date on Deacon Leatherby\u2019s essay \u2014 San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garc\u00eda-Siller announced that the Mission\u2019s founder<\/a>, John Mary Foster, had been found guilty of schism, declared excommunicated, and removed from the clerical state. The archbishop said Foster had called Francis and Leo XIV \u201cusurpers\u201d and continued celebrating Mass while omitting the pope\u2019s name from the Eucharistic Prayer.<\/p>\n

Deacon Leatherby has been involved in multiple Catholic apocalyptic circles. He has worked with Christine Watkins<\/a>, author of the Catholic bestseller The Warning: Testimonies and Prophecies of the Illumination of Conscience<\/a>. In 2019, they collaborated on the DVD set<\/a> accompanying her book Mary\u2019s Mantle Consecration<\/a> \u2014 described on the Queen of Peace Media website as \u201can 8-part video series by Deacon David Leatherby and author, Christine Watkins.\u201d (The series is available as a YouTube playlist<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The book carries an endorsement from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco. It has an invalid imprimatur from Ram\u00f3n Arg\u00fcelles, the retired archbishop of Lipa in the Philippines, whose imprimatur for The Warning was challenged by Kevin Symonds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watkins is a co-founder of the website Countdown to the Kingdom<\/a>, which has promoted messages from controversial seers, including Father Michel Rodrigue, the Quebec priest disavowed in 2020 by both bishops with authority over him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watkins also has a connection with Jeremy, whom she interviewed about his family and vocation<\/a> in 2014 for Radio Maria.<\/p>\n

In emails obtained by Where Peter Is, the diocesan chancellor wrote in August 2020, responding to an inquiry about The Warning and its imprimatur, that the diocese was until then \u201cnot aware of the publication.\u201d Two years later, a subsequent chancellor wrote that Watkins and Queen of Peace Media were no longer in the diocese and that Bishop Soto \u201cwould not allow the book as it stands to be used in formal Catholic circles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Community<\/p>\n

Sources who spoke with Where Peter Is on condition of anonymity describe a community that includes members of Jeremy\u2019s family and followers from his years as a parish priest. They identify its meeting place as a rural property outside Newcastle, between Loomis and Auburn, with a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.<\/p>\n

One source provided a recording of a meeting and described a typical deliverance team gathering. Participants sit in a circle. One occupies a \u201cspecial chair\u201d and speaks in a voice they believe to be God\u2019s.<\/p>\n

In the recording, the woman whom the source identifies as a close family member speaks as Christ, addressing Jeremy as her son. Her speech is interspersed with crying and labored breathing. \u201cBe not afraid of Bergoglio, of the person who breathes as the Pope in St. Peter\u2019s,\u201d she says. \u201cYou are not his son.\u201d Later she dismisses his bishop\u2019s authority: \u201cYour bishop does not have authority over you. We do.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also declares: \u201cI proclaim in heaven and earth that my son, Father Jeremy Leatherby, will reign in my kingdom.\u201d At another point, she says, \u201cThis is my body. This is my blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

The session ends with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, and a priest\u2019s blessing.<\/p>\n

Relatives and sources close to the family worry that physical and mental health problems within the group have been interpreted primarily as spiritual attack. Those who have left, or who have raised concerns from outside, describe hostility and, in at least one case, near-total loss of contact with those who remain.<\/p>\n

The Remnant Archipelago<\/p>\n

The deacon\u2019s vision of a Church surviving in scattered refuges runs through The Remnant Archipelago, a two-volume series published in 2025 through BookBaby under the name \u201cA Marian Priest.\u201d Both volumes are sold on Amazon: Part I: The E-Team<\/a> and Part II: The Paschal Mystery of the Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Deacon Leatherby promoted the books to his mailing list. In June 2025, he advertised \u201ca newly published book by a young priest I know,\u201d offering copies from his home for $25. He described its contents as \u201camazing true stories by an exorcist priest\u201d and encouraged recipients to look it up on Amazon because \u201cthe author will benefit from the activity.\u201d In September, he sent another message promoting both volumes. Neither mailing identified the author as his son or mentioned Jeremy\u2019s return to the lay state in 2020.<\/p>\n

Sources familiar with the group identify Jeremy as the author and as the priest called \u201cFather Peter\u201d throughout the books. They identify his father as \u201cJunior\u201d and his mother as \u201cEmilia.\u201d The author biography<\/a> describes a priest ordained nearly twenty years earlier, an exorcist for more than a decade, who \u201ccurrently ministers to a remnant flock.\u201d His father\u2019s manifesto cites the second volume.<\/p>\n

In the opening statement, the author says names and minor details have been changed to protect confidentiality. He presents the accounts as eyewitness testimony, insisting, \u201cEverything illustrated is factual.\u201d The first volume follows the team through a series of cases involving people it believes to be afflicted by demons. The second applies those experiences to the condition of the Church. The author describes what he witnessed as a \u201cmicrocosm\u201d of what was coming upon the Church and the world.<\/p>\n

Part I reads something like Ocean\u2019s Eleven, with Father Peter assembling a team whose members each bring a different skill to the job. Junior, a deacon, conducts the introductory interviews and helps interpret the team\u2019s findings. Dominic is one of the strongmen who hold people down when sessions get out of hand. Christian, the team\u2019s \u201cColumbo,\u201d draws on his store of miscellaneous knowledge to piece together puzzling cases. This is the book\u2019s E-Team.<\/p>\n

Then there is Marianne, a pharmacist who says she can see and hear the spiritual world. When she tells Father Peter that Satan has not been bound, the narrator explains how she knows: \u201cShe asked God, and He told her.\u201d The chapter, \u201cTrue Discernment of Spirits,\u201d describes the team\u2019s initial doubts about her ability, its use of scriptural formulas to test the spirits she hears, and an incident in which she locates her daughter\u2019s lost keys. It presents those experiences as grounds for the team\u2019s confidence in her guidance.<\/p>\n

In Part I\u2019s second case, Father Peter questions a purported demon about a woman with breast cancer whom the book calls Jennifer. He asks whether a piece of cloth she wore over her heart caused it. The answer is yes. \u201cWhy did the cloth cause cancer?\u201d he asks. \u201cIt was cursed,\u201d comes the reply. Later, the purported demon says her cancer went into remission because the curse was partly broken, but warns that the curse could return unless the priest takes further action. The team then prays.<\/p>\n

In Volume II, the author applies the same approach to the Church under Francis. Its chapter titles include \u201cThe Mystical Body of the Antichrist,\u201d \u201cAnti-pope Bergoglio,\u201d \u201cThe Counter-magisterium,\u201d and \u201cThe Great Apostasy.\u201d The author describes the institutional Church as having been occupied from within by an opposing body that retains the outward appearance of Catholicism.<\/p>\n

The book credits Vigan\u00f2\u2019s 2018 accusations concerning Theodore McCarrick and the hierarchy with bringing Father Peter\u2019s suspicions about corruption into focus. The section is titled \u201cVigan\u00f2\u2019s Testimony Brings Crystallization.\u201d Father Peter\u2019s conclusion that Francis was not pope rests on a further claim: that Benedict XVI had relinquished the exercise of papal ministry without giving up the office itself, making his resignation invalid. \u201cThe law is the law,\u201d the author writes, \u201cand thus, Benedict XVI most certainly remained the Pope.\u201d Vigan\u00f2 himself was declared excommunicated for schism<\/a> in July 2024, before the books appeared.<\/p>\n

In chapter 12 of Volume II, the author predicts that priests of a coming \u201cRemnant Church\u201d will be excommunicated and laicized, but calls those acts \u201cmeaningless\u201d because the authorities imposing them lack jurisdiction. He cites In Sinu Jesu, a book of purported private revelations examined in a 2020 series of articles<\/a> by Dawn Eden Goldstein for WPI, quoting passages about the purification and renewal of the priesthood.<\/p>\n

Vigan\u00f2 had also praised In Sinu Jesu. In an August 2019 account<\/a>, Robert Moynihan reported that the archbishop had found the book \u201ca great consolation\u201d and asked him to identify its author so he could thank him. The author was Father Mark Kirby of Silverstream Priory, who later faced allegations of spiritual abuse<\/a> and sexual harassment from multiple men under his authority.<\/p>\n

Preparing for the Remnant<\/p>\n

When the books were published, Jeremy had already been excommunicated and returned to the lay state. The books give his followers a religious explanation for a break with the Church that had already taken place.<\/p>\n

Part II promises \u201clocations of refuge, physical and\/or spiritual,\u201d where the Church will be preserved during the reign of the Antichrist. These scattered communities give the series its title, an explicit reference to Solzhenitsyn\u2019s The Gulag Archipelago. The author describes small pockets of faithful people dispersed around the world, through whom God will deliver \u201cthe humiliating and final blow to the Communist agenda.\u201d In his account of what Mary imparted at La Salette, he envisions priests ministering to a hidden Church in barns, caves, and alcoves.<\/p>\n

The family business continues to expand. In 2025, CBS Sacramento reported<\/a> that Leatherby\u2019s had bought three farms along the Sacramento River. A 2026 Folsom Times profile<\/a> described a walnut orchard that had grown into a 120-acre operation supplying nuts, fruit, and other ingredients for the creameries.<\/p>\n

For people who believe God speaks at their meetings, a warning from the bishop has little chance of changing their minds. The books and the deacon\u2019s letters give them another reason to persist: the men condemning them belong to a counterfeit Church. Correction becomes further evidence that they are being persecuted for their faith.<\/p>\n

Communion and Reconciliation<\/p>\n

Jeremy Leatherby has not responded to a request for comment. Deacon Leatherby initially offered to speak but has not provided written answers to follow-up questions sent by Where Peter Is.<\/p>\n

The Leatherby family\u2019s story has much that Catholics might admire: a large family rooted in its community, a successful family business, and a shared faith that led members to serve as a priest and a deacon. That history is part of what makes these documents so difficult to read.<\/p>\n

Some sources say that questioning the ministry has meant losing contact with people they love. Women who once trusted Jeremy as a spiritual director have described manipulation and abuse. Those accounts belong alongside the letters and books in any understanding of what has happened.<\/p>\n

The documents leave the reader with a difficult question: How did people whose lives were so closely bound to the Church come to regard communion with it as a threat to their faith?<\/p>\n

Bishop Soto\u2019s response to Where Peter Is did not say whether the formal process mentioned in his warning had begun. He offered a prayer for reconciliation:<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus, the Good Shepherd, never tires of gathering us into the merciful communion of His one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. May Mary, Mother of the Church, intercede for us, that the Most Sacred Heart of her Son may heal all divisions among us, and unite all minds and hearts to His so that we may all be one in Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story is developing. Jeremy Leatherby has not responded to a request for comment, and Deacon Leatherby has not answered written follow-up questions. This article will be updated if either responds or if further information emerges.<\/p>\n

Image: Sacramento skyline at sunset. Photo by Meritt Thomas<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n

Liked this post? Take a second to support Where Peter Is on Patreon!<\/p>\n

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Mike Lewis is the founding managing editor of Where Peter Is. In addition to his work for the site, his writing has appeared in America Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, US Catholic, The Irish Catholic, Catholic Outlook, The Synodal Times, and other Catholic publications. He has been quoted in The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New York Post, and other mainstream outlets on Catholic affairs. He previously co-hosted the Field Hospital podcast with Jeannie Gaffigan and The Debrief podcast. Before founding Where Peter Is, he worked in communications at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Climate Covenant. He is married with four children.<\/p>\n

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