PITTSBURGH - Immediately following the 9:30 a.m. mass at St. Elizabeth Church in suburban Pittsburgh on Sunday, Noah Swayne announced to fellow parishioners that he was retracting the sign of peace he had given to an unnamed parishioner.Swayne addressed about a half-dozen parishioners on the steps of the church. "I regret to announce that on my way out of church, I was informed by a reliable source that a certain person to whom I had given the sign of peace, whose name I will not reveal, is rumored to have engaged in certain misconduct that I will not elaborate upon," Swayne explained. "Accordingly, in good conscience, I can't allow the sign of peace to stand."
This is not the first time Swayne has retracted the sign of peace. He did the same thing last January to his nephew, 16-year-old Matt Swayne, after learning that Matt's father had caught Matt masturbating to a Penthouse Magazine. Swayne also said at the time that he would never shake Matt's hand again "for obvious reasons."
For Swayne's latest retraction, Swayne said he would consider reinstating the sign of peace if the unspecified misconduct is rectified.
