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The “Thucist” claim is not consistent with either Fr. Hoopes’ own written explanation or the timeline.

Bill continued attending Mass offered by Fr. Hoopes, a non-Thuc-line priest, right up until Fr. Hoopes left St. Charles. Nothing in that timeline indicates that Bill had rejected Hoopes’ priestly line because he had “become a Thucist.”

More importantly, that claim does not match what Fr. Hoopes himself wrote to Bill on May 3:

“I sin daily, often seriously; I know the times are confusing; I know Catholic morality is hard even to know, let alone to live up to, in the pressures of our time.”

Hoopes then specifically apologized for his own conduct:

“I humbly ask pardon and forgiveness from you for my misdeeds in my time with you.”

And concluded:

“You are right that I am too medieval and impractical; your property deserves a better priest.”

If the real reason Hoopes left was that Bill had become theologically unacceptable or “Thucist,” why did Hoopes blame himself, apologize for his own “misdeeds,” and tell Bill that St. Charles deserved a better priest?

It is also difficult to reconcile Hoopes’ statement that Catholic morality is “hard even to know” in these confusing times with the later claim that he applied an exceptionally strict, legalistic judgment to a 78-year-old man, supposedly involving mortal sin and requiring Mass to cease at St. Charles.

Bill says their management dispute concerned accounting for cash. Whatever the merits of that dispute, the “Thucist” explanation is not consistent with what Fr. Hoopes wrote at the time or with the timeline of Bill continuing to attend his Mass until Hoopes left.

It is possible that Fr. Hoopes subsequently gave his congregation a different explanation than the one he wrote. This may be the basis of our discussion here.

This has been drowned out with all the Bill vs. Hoopes chatter, but this is huge.

Hoopes reportedly practices ‘white magic,’ has astrology book delivered to rectory

A source who previously attended St. Charles told LifeSiteNews that Hoopes once told him during a private conversation that he practices “white magic” and that he is a “magician.” The source was concerned and asked Hoopes for an explanation because it “sounded un-Catholic.”

“Hoopes proceeded to give a long-winded explanation as to how the Church in past centuries permitted such ‘magic,’” according to the source.

The source also attested that Hoopes gave a “mixture of leaves or spices in a glass jar” to at least one family in St. Charles’ congregation, and “allegedly advised them to burn it in their home to ward off evil spirits.” This “somewhat concerned” the family, but Hoopes said that the Catholic Church carried out practices along these lines in the Middle Ages.

Price confirmed this in a statement shared with LifeSiteNews:
Quote

Quote I, William M. Price, witnessed an exhibit arranged by Fr. Timothy Hoopes at St. Charles Church, Cheboygan, MI, for All Souls Day, 2025. Father’s exhibit included replicas of human skulls and gourds. Father notified curious observers of the Church’s habit of displaying such in the Middle Ages. Also, Father prepared a certain mixture, available to the faithful to take and burn in their homes to ward off evil spirits.

As a seventy-eight-year-old cradle Catholic, I have never witnessed any such event in any Catholic church I attended during my lifetime.

Incidentally, a police record confirms that Hoopes recently picked up a 13th century book on astrology which was addressed to Hoopes’ residence at the St. Charles rectory, and mistakenly delivered to St. Charles Church according to Price, who found it there.

The book is a historical work on medieval astrology and divination, identified as Decem tractatus astronomiae, attributed to the 13th-century Italian astrologer Guido Bonatti and written in Latin with astrological diagrams.

According to Lapp, the book was previously banned by the Catholic Church, and if a priest obtained it without requesting permission from his bishop, Lapp argued, he would have “incurred the automatic punishment of apostasy.” Bonatti was a prohibited author according to the local Indexes of Venice (1554), Rome (1559), and Parma (1580) and this specific book was prohibited in the Portuguese Index of 1561 because of its teachings on predictive astrology.