A Faithful Catholic Priest is Under Attack

A Faithful Catholic Priest is Under Attack October 15, 2019

On Facebook tonight, my friend the Benedictine monk Father Stephanos Pedrano was attacked by a woman named Kamilla Ludwig, who told some horrendous lies about him. The lies seem to have been occasioned by Abby Johnson’s libel of Father Pedrano last week.

Ms. Ludwig has blocked me for some reason, so I can’t see where this happened. But I have friends who sent me links to two places and took screengrabs:

 

This is a lie. Father Pedrano is not a heretic. He doesn’t support abortion and contraception, publicly or otherwise, and there’s no evidence he did.

People informed Ms. Ludwig that she was mistaken, and she doubled down. She claimed there was a big conspiracy about Father’s tweets before a certain date not showing up, but Father has signed up for tweetdelete.com, a service that automatically deletes his tweets after a certain amount of time. Many people have that. Father didn’t even remember it was installed while he was trying to figure out what Ludwig was talking about. Ludwig kept trying to paint him as dishonest even when multiple people told her how wrong she was.

Meanwhile on Twitter, some weirdo named Babbity Rabbity or Nettles Thestra claimed that Father Pedrano had “attacked” Abby and that the accusations against him were true:

 

Father Pedrano is not a public person. He doesn’t even have a blog. He has a facebook and a twitter account because he’s the monk at the abbey who takes care of the correspondence and answers the email for them.

And he didn’t attack Abby. He was very gentle, all things considered. Many people saw that as well:


Does that sound like an “attack?”

What Kamilla Ludwig has done is libel, and it’s against the law. It’s completely actionable and she deserves to be hauled into court for it. Besides, it’s a very serious sin. Calumniating a priest like this is a mortal sin, under the usual conditions. I hope she refrains from Communion without confession first.

If Abby Johnson is the one who’s telling her followers these lies, she deserves the blame as well. But perhaps Ms. Ludwig just made this specific lie up herself, inspired by Abby’s recent libel of Father Pedrano. Same for Babbity Rabbity, whoever that is.

And this is yet another reason why you don’t commit calumny: because it gets out of hand. I think it’s pretty obvious that Abby Johnson is a liar. She lied about my friend, she lied about being the victim in the fight between herself and the Right Reverend Talbert Swan on her Twitter in her self-serving non-apology. She lied about New Wave Feminists never supporting her publicly. There’s compelling evidence that she may have lied about some other awfully important things. She isn’t trustworthy.  And yet, the rumor Abby started about an innocent person persists. Now other people have taken up the torch, libeling Father Pedrano to defend Abby, and it’s taken on a life of its own. I can’t tamp it down with blog posts, much as I would like to and will try.

Father Pedrano is one of the only kind priests I know. He supports the WHOLE Catechism: the parts that annoy liberals and also the parts that annoy conservatives. And yes, he’s very vocal about the parts of the Catechism that annoy conservatives. But he does not support abortion or contraception.

I am sick that a good priest’s reputation is being destroyed by a dishonest bully and her dishonest enablers. And yes, I still believe that racism is a big factor here. Thousands of people were sickened by what Abby said, and said so. I, myself, was particularly vociferous. The Right Reverend Talbert Swan called her out rudely and Father Stephanos called her out gently, and they’re the ones she attacked. Now Father Stephanos is now a victim of libel from multiple people, because of this lie.

Please take a moment to correct the lies if you see any gossip about him.

And do keep him in your prayers.

 

(Image via Pixabay) 

 

 

 

 

 

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