Missouri priest under fire for denying Communion to lesbian couple
CHILLICOTHE, MO, – A Missouri priest ordained last May is being raked over the media coals for upholding Catholic Church teaching on homosexuality after he denied Communion to a woman that he discovered has been in a long-term lesbian relationship. Father Benjamin Kneib of Saint Columban Catholic Church in Chillicothe found out that two women in his parish, Carol Parker and Josephine Martin, were lesbians and had cohabited for nearly twenty years when he saw the obituary notice for Parker’s mother. The obituary said she was survived by a son, a daughter and her “daughter’s partner.” Fr. Kneib (r) with Bishop Robert Finn. Credit: St. Columban Catholic Church Parker told a local TV station that Father Kneib had called her the day before the funeral to tell her he could not offer her Communion.“ He had called me the day of the rosary and said he wouldn’t be able to give us communion because of our same-sex relationship,” Parker told Fox4KC . Parker said that as a resu