Los Angeles, USA - A heresy trial was held Tuesday for a Roman Catholic priest who joined a denomination that doesn't accept papal infallibility, has ordained women clergy and permits homosexuals to take Communion.
The Rev. Ned Reidy did not attend the one-day closed trial, which was conducted by three priests at the headquarters of the Diocese of San Bernardino.
He is accused of heresy defined as "the rejection of fundamental matters of Catholic faith at the highest levels," such as papal authority, according to the Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the diocese.
Reidy, 69, also is charged with schism for breaking communion with the Roman Catholic church. If convicted, he could appeal to the Vatican, although Reidy said he would have no interest in doing so.
The court's decision will be announced to Reidy at an unspecified future date but it does not have to be made public, Lincoln said.
Reidy called the trial "medieval" and contends that it has no authority because he stopped being a Roman Catholic in 1999.
"I just think the discourtesy level is appalling," he said in a telephone interview. "I have moved way beyond all that and the brutality of the Roman Catholic church and for me to go would give a certain legitimacy to this witch hunt."
Reidy was automatically excommunicated when he went to another denomination, Lincoln said, but under canonical law he remains a Roman Catholic priest until he is formally excommunicated and defrocked.
The trial would "officially clarify his status within the church," Lincoln said.
"We live in a time when we need to be clear who is legally entrusted to administer in the name of the church and who isn't," he said.
Reidy disagrees.
"I'm not a Roman Catholic priest. I used to be," he said.
The most famous heresy trial in history may have been Galileo's second trial before the Inquisition in 1633. The astronomer was found guilty of heresy for promoting the view that the earth revolves around the sun. He was ordered to recant and was sentenced to imprisonment, which turned into lifelong house arrest.
Reidy was ordained in 1962 and was pastor of Christ of the Desert Roman Catholic parish in Palm Desert, near Palm Springs, before he resigned to join the Ecumenical Catholic Communion.
He now is pastor of the 100-member Community of the Risen Christ church in Bermuda Dunes, only a few miles from his old church.
His denomination, based in Orange County, considers itself Catholic in the sense of celebrating its sacraments. But it does not believe in the infallibility of the pope and permits married and female clergy. It also holds more liberal views than the Vatican on divorce, birth control and homosexuality.
The San Bernardino diocese has held one previous heresy trial in 2003. The Rev. Anthony Garduno was found guilty of heresy and schism and removed from the "clerical state" after he formed a church in Riverside County that permitted priests to marry.
Some Roman Catholic scholars told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that they were unaware of any other heresy trials in the United States.
Such cases are rare anywhere in modern times, said Msgr. Thomas Green, a professor of canon law at The Catholic University of Washington in Washington, D.C.
"By and large, once you get past the Council of Trent and the 1600s and 1700s, you don't hear much about it," he said.