Ontario priest excommunicated after starting his own church

Published: 2006-04-20

PETERBOROUGH, Ontario (CNS) -- A priest of the Diocese of Peterborough who publicly supports women priests has been excommunicated after starting his own church. Peterborough Bishop Nicola De Angelis issued a letter saying that Father Ed Cachia, already suspended for concelebrating a liturgy with women who said they were ordained as Catholic priests, "incurred automatic excommunication by virtue of the law of the church" when he began a new church April 2. "In doing so, he acted entirely on his own initiative and without the approval of the holy Roman Catholic Church," Bishop De Angelis wrote in his April 9 letter. He warned Catholics to stay away from "this breakaway church" and not support "the disobedience of Father Cachia." Father Cachia calls his new church Christ the Servant Church and celebrates liturgies in a hall in the small town of Cobourg. According to the Peterborough Examiner daily newspaper, some 300 people attended the first liturgy. Bishop De Angelis declared the church schismatic.

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