The priest, now retired, is permanently barred from hearing confessions and from holding an office in the Church—but remains a priest in restricted ministry.
“This decision is the result of an administrative disciplinary process overseen by the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith,” the Missouri diocese said in a statement.
Bishop W. Shawn McKnight said he will permit Father Medina to celebrate Mass in the following circumstances: “funeral Masses of his immediate family, at the gathering of priests at their annual conference in October, and at the Chrism Mass during Holy Week.”
The penalties, according to the diocesan statement, were imposed by Bishop McKnight, who “delegated the matter to an experienced priest and canon lawyer from the Archdiocese of Toronto,” and approved by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández since July. Canon law permits a range of penalties for sexual solicitation in the confessional, including “suspension, prohibitions, privations,” and laicization “in more grave cases.”
The allegation of solicitation in the confessional was lodged in 2022, at which point Bishop McKnight barred Father Medina from hearing confessions or being alone with others on Church property. Separately, in 2023, Father Medina was found guilty (in a canonical trial) of abuse of power through the misuse of funds: he “transferred approximately $300,000 of Church money into personal accounts.”
Bishop McKnight, the former executive director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Clergy, was appointed bishop of Jefferson City in 2017. In 2019, he finished in second place in the election for the chairmanship of the US bishops’ Committee on Protection of Children and Young People.