CNA Staff, Jan 25, 2024 / 11:30 am
A Kentucky bishop this month announced the dismissal of two priests who he said had repeatedly denigrated the modern form of the holy sacrifice of the Mass in their parish.
Covington Bishop John Iffert said in a letter to members of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Park Hills, Kentucky, that he had requested the resignation of parish pastor Father Shannon Collins while ordering the removal of parochial vicar Father Sean Kopczynski.
Iffert said he removed the priests — both members of the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist — after developing “serious concerns” about their pastoral leadership. The parish on its website says it is “home to the Traditional Latin Mass Parish for the Diocese of Covington.”
Iffert wrote that he had ordered the dismissals “after becoming aware that Father Collins had preached in the parish that the holy sacrifice of the Mass, as celebrated in the current Roman Catholic liturgy, is ‘irrelevant,’ preserves ‘literally nothing of the old,’ and that the reform of the liturgy was motivated by hatred towards traditional Catholics and the ancient liturgies of Rome.”