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Parish Priest of Padre Pio Parish, in the Parramatta Diocese, Fr Kevin Lee, stated in an interview on Channel 7 News on Tuesday, that he had been married for a year.
Fr Lee, who is also a police chaplain, claimed that most priests lead a double life. This claim was completely rejected by Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, who immediately suspended Fr Lee from priestly ministry.
During the interview Fr Lee stated, ”I’ve fallen in love and I’ve got married and it’s outside of most people’s awareness,” he said. ”But I’m sure people within the church could have had a suspicion.”
He said his public admission was motivated by the fact that many priests led a double life. ”I think celibacy has to go,” he said.
The head of the Diocese of Parramatta, Anthony Fisher OP, denied Father Lee’s claims that most priests lived double lives and that the church knew about the priest’s marriage.
Fr Lee has courted controversy before when he participated in a radio contest in which he was “jailed” in a former prison in Melbourne, for three weeks sharing a cell with a former strip club manager. The priest and seven other contestants were required to perform stunts that were filmed and broadcast such as an egg-eating competition and, in Fr. Lee’s case, reciting an advertisement for a potency treatment called Horny Devil Weed.
Fr. Lee won the competition, winning a car — which he kept — and A$20,000 in prize money which he donated to a hostel for homeless men in Sydney. The priest also claims that attendance at his church increased dramatically, especially among young people, and that he even managed to convert the strip club manager to Christianity. He also claimed that his bishop of the time, the Rt Rev Kevin Manning, had approved of his involvement. Nonetheless, following complaints from some parishioners, Fr. Lee was suspended for a period.
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