This is what happens!

New York Post December 13, 2015 by Eileen AJ Connelly and Mary Kay Liinge

The Bronx priest with a crucifix-ation on his S&M “master” was a holier-than-thou blowhard who denied sacraments to “unworthy” parishioners, railed against gays at baptism class, yelled at the faithful on the Communion line and conducted his own vindictive war on Christmas, say members of his flock.

The Rev. Peter Miqueli — whose resignation letter was read to congregants at the 5 p.m. Mass on Saturday at St. Frances de Chantal Church — “cares more about how his hair looks than anything else,” said ex-parishioner Victoria Vulcano.

Catherine Holmes said that when her 12-year-old daughter, Genevieve, was preparing for confirmation at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church on Roosevelt Island, Miqueli questioned her standing as a Catholic because she was a single mom.

“He said he would see my daughter at Mass, but where was I,” she told The Post.

Miqueli claimed Genevieve missed too many religious education classes and denied her the sacrament, Holmes said.

Neither Holmes nor her daughter has practiced the faith since.

“He alienates just about everybody who comes in his path,” said Holmes, who had been a parishioner of the church for a decade.

He also refused to baptize babies, according to commenters on an online petition and protest pages calling for the cleric’s ouster.

One time, he allegedly refused simply because a family member was late.

“How dare he turn a newborn child away [from] the church?” wrote Richard Felice of The Bronx, who said his friend’s grandkid was denied.

Baptism classes for adult converts were also a moral minefield under Miqueli’s rule.

He would rant “that being gay is a sin, and he was very serious on the topic. Proving he is a pathological liar,” wrote Danielle Schepis, who took preparation classes at St. Frances de Chantal. “When a classmate defended gays, he was almost enraged.”

Even when he wasn’t refusing to administer sacraments, Miqueli often made religious experiences negative, say the faithful. 

Even walking to altar to receive Communion was like running the gantlet.“He yelled at me during Reconciliation,” Sheila Garvey of The Bronx wrote on the petition site. “I went there for support from my pastor because I felt like I was losing my faith. He worsened the situation.”

“He yelled at me, and my child, on the communion line in front of the entire church,” wrote Jen Hawkins of The Bronx.

Vulcano said she fled St. Frances de Chantal because she was turned off by Miqueli’s attitude at her son’s confirmation two years ago.

“After the ceremony, my son went over to have his picture taken with the cardinal,” a tradition surrounding the coming-of-age rite, she said. “Father Miqueli told my son to get away from him.”

The priest, while at Holy Family Church on Staten Island early in his career, also gave the family of a disabled parishioner a hard time over a sacrament.

Devin Cutugno, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, needed a letter from the church to serve as a godfather for a relative at a baptism at another parish. Miqueli insisted on seeing the 22-year-old man, even though the rectory was not handicapped-accessible.

“I thought he was really obnoxious,” said Devin’s mother, Donna. “It’s not like he couldn’t check the records.”

Miqueli seemed to follow his own commandments — the first being, don’t perturb the pastor.

Miqueli dismissed a parishioner from his long-held position as a head usher after the man signed an anti-Miqueli letter that circulated last October. Members of the parish’s Holy Name Society who signed the letter were also kicked out of the organization.

‘He yelled at me, and my child, on the communion line in front of the entire church’

 - one parishioner said of Rev. Peter Miqueli

Even disagreeing with the prickly pastor was enough to keep volunteers out of liturgical tasks, from the reading of psalms during Holy Week to the distribution of Communion at Mass.

Miqueli even launched his own war on Christmas in 2014, parishioners said. First, he barred the Holy Name Society from selling Christmas cards in the church vestibule during Advent as it had for years.

“The pastor’s reason for banning the sale is that several members of the HNS were signatories” to the letter, one parishioner said.

Then he stripped the church of its wreaths, Christmas trees and creche.

“Outside the church, the annual tree lighting (which always took place two weeks before Christmas) did not take place,” wrote an anonymous poster.

Miqueli also lorded over the church’s staffers and volunteers. He even called himself the “King of St. Frances,” according to a Web site created in 2014, “Free St. Frances de Chantal from Fr. Peter Miqueli.”

“Since day one of his arrival, everything has gone downhill,” the site says. “From his bad attitude to his constant arrogance, this man is solely ruining one of the great Catholic parishes in the Bronx.

“Coming from a parish on Roosevelt Island, he has no skills (both intellectual and sociable) to be able to run this parish in Throggs Neck.

“Not only does he do nothing himself, but he forces his work upon all of the employees. He does this without any gratitude . . . He needs to go and we need your help!”

He was “very pompous,” said parishioner Jim Corbett.

He’d say, “I’m the king here. I can’t be touched,” Corbett recalled.

Miqueli, ordained in 1991, was assigned to five parishes in Staten Island and Yonkers in his first 12 years as a priest — an eyebrow-raising number of moves, a church source said.

(I have been in church where this guy presided in Staten Island. At several Masses for funerals and christenings. In fact he baptized some family members. He was a real piece of work. The word was that the gay mafia in the Church protected him and moved him from place to place. Of course he was a bully and he only pushed around people who couldn't push back. He finally went too far and the gays in the Cardinals office couldn't protect him anymore. Thank God he didn't like kids.)