What ever happened to that Italian guy?

You know. Father Peter Liuzzi. The Carmelite priest who ran Mahony's "Ministry to Gay and Lesbian Catholics". He just sort of disappeared all of a sudden. What's up with him?

Back in 2002, he was mentioned in the infamous Mahony e-mails. He was pretty tight, so to speak, with another Carmelite priest, Dominic Savino, who was forced to step down as President of Crespi Catholic High School on account of alleged sexual abuse of minors.

Sister Judy Murphy, the then in-house attorney for the Archdiocese, wrote about Liuzzi in an e-mail sent to one of the attorneys of the Archdiocese's legal firm. She doesn't mention Liuzzi by name, but it is clear from the context that she is referring to Liuzzi.

Sister Judy's e-mail:

As to the other [Carmelite] priest, he is the priest who ministered at the ACC to gay and lesbian Catholics. He stayed on the narrow line until he wrote his book. He is gay and the Catholic Mission (the off the wall right wing throw-away newspaper) has been gunning for him for years.

There is no suggestion here that Liuzzi had been accused of any improprieties with minors. The concern, which is raised in another e-mail, is that Liuzzi, simultaneous to the announcement of the removal of Father Savino, was being transferred to the faculty of Crespi following the dismantling of his Gay and Lesbian Ministry due to the loss of funding. There was clearly some apprehension on the part of some of the Archdiocesan managers over the appointment of Liuzzi, a known homosexual, to an all boys' school, given the torrent of revelations involving homosexual priests abusing young men and boys.

The Vicar for Clergy, Monisgnor Cox, was strongly opposed to the removal of Liuzzi from the Crespi faculty. In another e-mail, one of the Archdiocesan attorneys told Sister Judy:

Msgr. Cox is opposed to the removal of Fr. Liuzzi who teaches a one hour course once a week at Crespi reasoning that if he was good enough to be on the Cardinal's staff, he is OK to teach at Crespi H.S. (Disagree.) All homosexuals are not pedophiles. (Agree.) If the Cardinal was to tell the Carmelites to remove Fr. Liuzzi, that is his decision. There has never been a claim about Fr. Liuzzi.

I am not sure how long Liuzzi was on staff at Crespi, but he wasn't there too long. I think he took one of those "sabbaticals."

And now where is he?

Three guesses before you click.

The ANSWER.

And also HERE.

And HERE as well.

POSTSCRIPT



L.A. Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala and Father Peter Liuzzi both served on the National Assn. of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries. They both resigned from the organization at the same time reportedly because some German theologian in the Vatican was cracking down on so-called "ministries" to homosexual persons that did not uphold the teachings of the Church.