Flag-Burning Priest in Hiding to Avoid Being Committed, ‘Tarred and Feathered’

The Catholic priest removed from an Avondale church last weekend after burning an LGBTQ-friendly flag said in an interview published Wednesday that he has gone into hiding to avoid being committed to a mental institution by Archdiocese of Chicago leaders.

In his first public comments since Cardinal Blase Cupich removed him as pastor of Resurrection Catholic Church — recorded at an “undisclosed location” — the Rev. Paul Kalchik told the conservative Catholic news website Church Militant that Cupich dispatched two of his top deputies last Friday to take him away from the church at 3043 N. Francisco.

“[They said] ‘Pack your bags now and we’ll make certain that you get to St. Luke’s safely and get locked up for a number of months,’ ” Kalchik said, referring to the Saint Luke Institute, a mental-health facility in Maryland for the clergy.

When Kalchik refused to leave, he says the two deputies — Cupich’s vicars for priests — threatened to call the police to have him “forcibly removed.”

“And I don’t know how that would have played out, because we already had all these volunteer policemen there to make certain I wouldn’t be tarred and feathered by the rabid homosexualists of the North Side of Chicago, you know, who are [sending me] death threats,” Kalchik said. (Read more from “Flag-Burning Priest in Hiding to Avoid Being Committed, ‘Tarred and Feathered’” HERE)

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