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Vatican upholds excommunication of Louisiana deacon who left priesthood after son's abuse by Catholic cleric

Confirmed1 source · Oct 19, 2026

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith rejected Scott Peyton's appeal, citing his joining an Anglican congregation as an act of refusal to submit to papal authority.

Vatican upholds excommunication of Louisiana deacon who left priesthood after son's abuse by Catholic cleric
Image via The Guardian

What happened

Scott Peyton, a Louisiana deacon ordained in 2012, resigned from the Catholic Church in December 2023 after his teenage son was molested by priest Michael Guidry (who confessed in 2018 and received a seven-year sentence). Peyton temporarily joined an Anglican congregation and disclosed this on social media. Bishop J Douglas Deshotel issued a decree excommunicating Peyton three months later. The Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) rejected Peyton's formal appeal filed in May 2024, ruling that joining a separated faith community constitutes automatic excommunication as an act of refusal to submit to the pope (who since May 2025 has been Leo XIV). Peyton was notified of the rejection on Friday in a meeting with Deshotel. Peyton, represented by canon attorney Dawn Eden Goldstein, intends to appeal the DDF's verdict.

Context

The case centers on competing claims about what constitutes harm to the Church. Peyton argued his excommunication harmed the spiritual lives of his wife and six children, and that joining another faith community after resigning was a reasonable response to his family feeling unwelcome following the abuse trauma. The DDF's decision treats the act of joining an Anglican congregation as inherently severing submission to Rome, invoking automatic excommunication doctrine. Peyton has emphasized that the imprisoned priest Guidry, though reportedly suspended from public ministry, remains a Catholic priest and has stated at parole hearings that he considers himself still in the priesthood—a contradiction Peyton views as the actual scandal. The case has drawn international attention as emblematic of the Church's response to clergy abuse, occurring within the Lafayette diocese where the Catholic abuse reckoning in the US notably began with priest Gilbert Gauthe's guilty plea in 1985.