Monday 7 December 2020

Naughty vicar sentenced

Can't wait to hear what sentence was passed? I'll break it to you now: deprivation I know, I wasn't any the wiser when I saw that word.

Luckily - as no normal fucker would know - the article explains its precise meaning in ecclesiastical law.

""DEPRIVATION"
SENTENCE ON RECTOR

Sentence of deprivation was pronounced by the Bishop of Winchester in the Chapter Room of Winchester Cathedral to-day on Rev. Hugo Dominique de la Mothe, 54-year-old rector of Dogmersfield, Hampshire, who was found guilty by a Consistory Court of resorting to taverns and tippling. 

The Bishop was accompanied by the Dean of Winchester, the Archdeacon of Winchester, and the Archdeacon of Basingstoke. There were very few people present when the Bishop took his seat, and Rev. Hugo de Mothe arrived after judgment had been pronounced. 

It is understood that the effect of the judgment is to deprive Mr Mothe of all benefits appertaining to the Parish Church of Dogmersfield, and that he will be unable to accept another appointment in the diocese of Winchester. He will, however, able to accept a position in the church elsewhere if he so desires.

[Note.—Whitehead's "Church Law defines deprivation as " the taking away from a clergyman of his benefice or ecclesiastical preferment." Deprivation should not be confused with deposition degradation, which means the taking away of holy orders and reducing a clergymen to the status of layman.] "
Dundee Evening Telegraph - Monday 18 December 1944, page 5.

The rector lost his job and his home, but could still get a new parish in another diocese. Given the national publicity his case was given, I can't imagine anyone would risk taking him on.

It could have been worse. They could have defrocked him.

Hugo Dominique de la Mothe seems to fall completely off the radar after the end of the case. 

But, I have found some earlier references to him in newspapers. (Handy that he has such an odd name.) They offer glimpses into his earlier life. But that's for next time.

2 comments:

Ed said...

Looks like he drank his last in 1956: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/genealogy/records/hugo-dominique-de-la-mothe-24-8z38w2

Ron Pattinson said...

Ed,

thanks for that. Sort of not surprised that he didn't hit 90.