Vatican Upholds Excommunication of Former Deacon

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has upheld the 2024 excommunication of former permanent deacon Scott Peyton of Louisiana, imposed by Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel of Lafayette. The declaration is dated May 22 and was signed October 16, 2024. Peyton learned of the decision at an October 16 meeting with the bishop, attended by his canon lawyer, Dawn Eden Goldstein, who represents him pro bono. He plans to appeal.

Abuse case and departure from the Church

The case is bound up with Father Michael Giudry, former pastor of St. Peter Catholic Church in Morrow, Louisiana, where Peyton served as deacon. Giudry was convicted in 2019 of molesting Peyton’s then-teenaged son, confessed to abusing the teen, and is set to be released from prison November 14 after a seven-year sentence. He must register as a sex offender. The family settled a civil lawsuit against the Diocese of Lafayette in April 2021. On May 7, 2021, the diocese said it found the allegations credible and formally apologized. Giudry appears on the diocese’s list of credibly accused priests; his post-incarceration priestly status has not been clarified publicly.

In December 2023 Peyton emailed his intention to resign from the diaconate and leave the Catholic Church. Bishop Deshotel issued a March 2024 decree of excommunication. In January 2024 Peyton and his family officially joined Trinity Anglican Church in Lafayette, which he announced on Facebook several weeks later, before moving to a nondenominational church.

The bishop’s decree stated that Peyton had “incurred the ‘latae sententiae’ censure of excommunication,” incurred automatically upon offenses such as apostasy, heresy, schism, and abortion. The Vatican agreed the charge of schism was accurate.

Appeal arguments and canonical outlook

Goldstein said Peyton “has always maintained that he was willing to abide by the terms” of the excommunication, but “contests that he acted with ‘dolus,’” the canonical term for malice. “What he wished was to keep his kids worshipping in a Christian church,” she added, citing the “religious trauma” of Peyton, his son, and the family amid “multiple pastoral failures” by the bishop.

The Dicastery acknowledged that Bishop Deshotel “could have been more explicit in warning Deacon Peyton about the canonical consequences of his proposed course of action,” yet noted “it was not evident what Deacon Peyton meant by ‘leave the Catholic Church and the diaconate’ until after he joined the Anglican Communion.” It underscored the “medicinal nature of the censure of excommunication” and expressed hope that Peyton’s “reconciliation” to the Church “may in fact come about.”

Msgr. John Paul Kimes, a canon law scholar at Notre Dame Law School, said the objective element—leaving the Church—is “clear and not contested,” and that Peyton’s arguments on the subjective element are “based on emotional arguments, not actual legal ones.” A return is possible, he said, but return to ministry as a deacon would require remission of the excommunication plus a dispensation from the canonical penalty of “irregularity.”