Vatican upholds excommunication of deacon whose son was abused by priest

A former Catholic deacon in Louisiana, who left the Church after a priest admitted sexually abusing his teenage son in 2018, has lost his appeal against excommunication. Scott Peyton, who resigned from Catholic ministry in 2023 and briefly joined an Anglican congregation, was informed that the Vatican had upheld his removal from the Catholic Church. The decision has drawn attention to the fact that Michael Guidry, the priest convicted of abusing Peyton's son, remains a priest despite serving a seven-year prison sentence.Peyton received the decision on Friday during a meeting with J Douglas Deshotel, the bishop of Lafayette. According to The Guardian, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) concluded that Peyton had formally separated himself from the Catholic Church by joining another Christian denomination.For Peyton, however, leaving the Church had followed years of distress over what happened to his family.