Priest’s new assignment: Helping those he invalidly baptized

PHOENIX — Families came one by one to the baptismal font in a Phoenix church where the Rev. The ceremony Thursday evening represented a new assignment for Arango, pastor of St. Gregory Parish for nearly five years until news broke that he had repeatedly flubbed the phrasing on the initiation rite. “Rebaptism doesn’t exist because baptism creates an ontological change in a person,” said Jay Conzemius, moderator of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s tribunal and past president of the Canon Law Society of America. Arango is a priest in good standing and has led many people to a deeper relationship with Christ in his pastoral work at Saint Gregory Parish, but now he is committing himself to this vital and important pastoral outreach to the people of God – helping and healing,” the diocese said. The diocese declined to say whether Arango resigned as pastor, as the priest said in a note posted on the diocese’s site.