CV NEWS FEED // According to recent reports, the Vatican has defrocked a Maine priest who was removed from ministry in 2020 following his actions that, according to a judge, “inflamed” a situation that led to a parishioner’s murder.
Bangor Daily News reported on July 30 that Anthony Cipolle has been defrocked by the Vatican, and that the Portland Press Herald (PPH) confirmed with the Diocese of Portland that Cipolle requested laicization, which took place in April.
Cipolle was ordained a priest in 2017 in the Diocese of Portland, Maine, according to Horowitz Law. He first applied to seminary in 2012.
“Despite his checkered past, which includes multiple career changes, a son, a marriage, and criminal charges (including attempted murder, attempted insurance fraud, and drug possession), Cipolle’s non-traditional path to the church was finalized when he was ordained in 2017 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland,” according to Horowitz Law.
He was first assigned to Our Lady of the Snows in Dexter, Maine, and then to St. Paul the Apostle in Bangor, Maine, before Bishop Robert Deeley removed him from ministry in 2018.
The Associated Press reported in 2020 that according to the PPH, Cipolle was the spiritual advisor of Rennee Henneberry Clark, a parishioner in Bangor, who was murdered by her brother-in-law in 2018.
Cipolle testified in court that he and Clark’s brother-in-law, Philip Clark, engaged in a fist fight hours before Clark murdered Rennee by shooting her 10 times, according to Bangor Daily News.
“Cipolle had helped Henneberry Clark leave her husband and rented a room from her in a house in Etna. He helped her collect her things from her home in Hampden, including tools and construction equipment that belonged to Clark, which he went to recover the night [Clark] shot her 10 times,” Bangor Daily News reported, later noting:
The judge in Philip Clark’s trial said Cipolle had an “opportunity” and “a moral obligation” to diffuse tensions, which began over accusations of stolen tools, but instead “inflamed” the situation.
The Portland Diocese determined that Cipolle violated the Diocese’s Code of Ethics and abused his position as a priest, the Associated Press reported in 2020.
According to a July 27 blog post by Horowitz Law, Cipolle was also accused of grooming and sexually exploiting a female parishioner at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Bangor shortly after Rennee’s murder. The Diocese reached an out of court settlement with this parishioner, who was a client represented by Horowitz Law.
