The following story most definitely falls into the “you can’t make this s*** up” category. So, you know how Bob McDonnell, now on trial for corruption as governor (and busy throwing his wife under the bus while rolling back and forth over her a few times, proving he’s a complete cad as well as a sleazeball), has moved out of his home with Maureen and moved in with a priest (Rev. Wayne Ball of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Richmond)? Well, how about we meet the good Reverend (note: thanks to Ben “Not Larry Sabato” Tribbett for the tip on this one, since he really broke the story).
Yeah, it’s this same guy.
The Rev. Wayne L. Ball, a Norfolk priest who pleaded guilty late last year to a misdemeanor sex offense, has been reassigned to St. John’s Catholic Church in Highland Springs, according to The Catholic Virginian, a biweekly diocesan newspaper. The move is effective June 2.
Ball, 42, has served as pastor of Norfolk’s Holy Trinity Catholic Church since 2000. The current pastor at St. John’s, the Rev. David V. McGuire, will replace Ball at Holy Trinity.
In December, Ball pleaded guilty in Norfolk General District Court to the misdemeanor charge of frequenting a bawdy place. Norfolk police arrested Ball and a 41-year-old Richmond man on the night before Thanksgiving in a parked car in a Norfolk park. The judge continued Ball’s case until July 8 and will dismiss the charge if the priest has no further criminal problems and completes 80 hours of community service by June 3. The man in the car with Ball received a similar deal.
[…]
Ball will be the second Catholic priest who recently pleaded guilty to a sex crime to serve at St. John’s in Highland Springs.
In February, the Rev. John P. Blankenship, who served at St. John’s from 1973 to 1977, pleaded guilty in Prince George County to four counts of sodomy. The charges stemmed from incidents that occurred after Blankenship’s time at St. John’s.
Look, it should go without saying that I have no problem with priests — or any other religious officials, or anyone else — being gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, etc. What I DO have a problem with is massive hypocrisy among politicians, such as a guy who richly earned the nickname “Taliban Bob” for his viciously anti-gay rhetoric and actions hounding/harassing LGBT people (not to mention his right-wingnut, theocratic, holier-than-thou, Pat Robertson-trained moralizing about what we all should or should not be doing in the privacy of our own bedrooms; not to mention the fact that when McDonnell himself was asked by reporters if HE had ever violated Virginia’s “crimes against nature” laws, he said “not that I can recall”).
Anyway, this is the priest – Wayne Ball – who “Homophobe Bob” McDonnell is now living with in a rectory in Richmond. Just when you thought this trial couldn’t any more soap opera-ish or bizarre…
P.S. Again, let me just emphasize that I don’t have any problem whatsoever with Rev. Ball being gay. I DO have a problem with Bob McDonnell spending his career telling everybody what’s right and wrong sexually as well as who they can and can’t marry; voting for anti-gay legislation; and generally being a homophobic jerk; and then moving in with a gay priest after moving out with his wife Maureen. Holy hypocrisy alert, Batman!
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