Catholic Priest

A CATHOLIC sister testified Monday that she was fired from her religious-school job in a Pottstown-area parish after questioning why a priest had received porn in the mail. The priest - the Rev. Edward M. DePaoli - had been arrested on child-pornography charges in 1985 and convicted and sentenced to probation. But in 1995, Sister Joan Scary - then in her sixth year as director of religious education at St. Gabriel's parish in Stowe, Montgomery County - was unaware of the details of DePaoli's past.

Schuylkill officials have agreed to make their township the new site for an interfaith memorial to four chaplains who died on an American troop ship that was sunk by a German submarine's torpedo during World War II. By approving a special exception to the township's zoning ordinance Tuesday night, the Schuylkill Zoning Hearing Board allowed the Chapel of Four Chaplains to forge ahead with plans to move its headquarters from the Temple University campus...

Ten people, including a Catholic priest, staged a three-hour demonstration at the Norristown office of U.S. Rep. Lawrence Coughlin yesterday, protesting Coughlin's support of aid for contra rebels in Nicaragua. The demonstrators, led by the Rev. Bernard A. Survil, a Maryknoll priest, took over the office at Markley and Marshall Streets from 2 p.m. until 5:45 p.m., when they were ousted by police. Coughlin, a Montgomery County Republican, was away on vacation. Father Survil said that he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and failure to disperse and then released.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is claiming victory. ABC is keeping mum. And advertisers - at least two, possibly as many as six - are deserting the network's controversial drama Nothing Sacred, which airs Thursday nights at 8. The show, which centers on a Catholic priest named Father Ray who questions church doctrine, has infuriated conservative Catholics since they got wind of the storyline, and copies of the script,...

The Rev. Joseph C. Reino, 80, a Villanova professor for 27 years who became a Catholic priest after retiring from teaching, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at St. Francis Country House in Darby. A colorful speaker who gave dramatic recitations from Shakespeare and Beowulf in the classroom, Father Reino used his gift for oratory after his ordination to encourage the faithful from the pulpit and in weekly radio broadcasts. He was born and raised in South Philadelphia and graduated from South Philadelphia High School.

Philadelphia police are investigating a man for posing as a Catholic priest and allegedly comforting the family of an officer critically injured last month during a car stop. Paul Schlear, 26, of Northeast Philadelphia, dressed as a priest and entered the intensive-care unit at Aria Health-Torresdale Campus to visit the family of Officer Richard Hayes, police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said yesterday. Vanore said the hospital episode was being investigated by Northeast Detectives, but what charges Schlear may face will be up to the District Attorney's Office.

A Filipino man, who friends said had come to the United States to study to be a nurse, was shot to death last night during an apparent holdup at a Wynnefield service station where he was working to pay for his education, police said. Immanuel Laqui, 25, was pronounced dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania at 9:32 p.m. Police said he had been shot once in the throat and once in the head. Laqui, who had been on duty alone at the station, was spotted on the floor of the Sunoco station at Wynnefield and Bryn Mawr Avenues by two people who had apparently stopped to buy gas, police said.

JAMES BRENNAN, the former Catholic priest accused of attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy, appeared downbeat but determined Monday to prove his innocence after learning that the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office plans to retry him. "I feel badly about it because, personally, I don't think it's necessary, but it's the commonwealth's decision to do what they do," Brennan, 49, said outside the Criminal Justice Center. "All I can do is respond to it. " Brennan said his greatest concern was for his family and his attorney, William Brennan, because, he said, "they shouldn't have to go through this again.

IN TAKING THE NAME Francis, the new pope hearkens back eight centuries to the preaching of St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most revered figures in the Catholic Church. St. Francis, born Giovanni di Bernardone, was something of a playboy in his youth and was a soldier before a vision sent him into a life of poverty and preaching. He was never a Catholic priest, but he founded the Franciscan Order and the Order of St. Clare for nuns. He was pronounced a saint by Pope Gregory IX on July 16, 1228.

SMETHPORT, PA. - A suspended Catholic priest will spend two years on probation - and his bishop already has said that the priest's felony conviction will keep him out of active ministry - for his inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old northwestern Pennsylvania boy. The Rev. Samuel Slocum, 60, was sentenced Monday in McKean County, where he was convicted last month of concealment of the whereabouts of a child, the Bradford Era ...