More Catholic priests and leaders are confirming the existence of an activist homosexual culture in seminaries and among the Church’s hierarchy – one, they say, that is at the root of the lies and cover-up of the sexual abuse scandal, recently addressed by a Pennsylvania grand jury.
The priests are speaking out following the release of a grand jury report that details hundreds of examples of alleged sex abuse – mostly of male victims – and the ensuing cover-ups by Catholic bishops.
The report itself is released in the wake of the removal from ministry of former archbishop of Washington, DC, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, following allegations that he sexually abused boys and engaged in sexual misconduct with seminarians.
“I believe that there needs to be an open recognition that we have a very grave problem of a homosexual culture in the Church,” Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former head of the Church’s version of the Supreme Court, said in an interview Thursday, “especially among the clergy and the hierarchy, that needs to be addressed honestly and efficaciously.”
Priests are describing a perverse, secretive, and intimidating culture of powerful activist homosexuals within the Church.
“Many people still don’t (I believe most priests still don’t) understand just how evil the active homosexual or homosexual activist (AH/HA from here on out) priests and bishops are,” writes Father Edwin Palka, pastor of Epiphany of Our Lord Catholic Church in Tampa, Florida, in his weekly bulletin.
He adds:
Not understanding the extent of their depravity and wrongly thinking that they are simply “normal” men who just struggle with their sexual desires and sometimes might fail to remain chaste but are really, truly repentant when it happens and strive to “confess my sins, do penance and amend my life, amen”, they cannot possibly grasp the hellish depths to which the AH/HA [active homosexual/homosexual activist] clergy will go to persecute, lambaste, punish, humiliate and blackmail anyone who stands in their way or threatens their way of life.
Palka explains that priests who complain about homosexual advances to a homosexual activist bishop or who aspire to teach the Church’s doctrine on marriage and chastity “will get the worst assignment the bishop can conjure up.”
He writes:
A young priest who insists on preaching Catholic faith and morals will almost assuredly be sent to an AH/HA pastor to “straighten him out” (a very bad use of words). His AH/HA pastor will berate him both privately and publicly and tear him apart behind his back at every moment with slander, calumny, innuendo, and lies. The young priest will be intimidated and bullied as few have ever witnessed or imagined. The AH/HA pastor has filled his staff with AH/HA lay people and deacons and the young priest has nobody to whom to turn. There is nobody to reassure him that he is not the “bad guy” with the exception of a handful of good, faithful Catholic parishioners whom the pastor and staff have not yet been able to run off.
Father John Zuhlsdorf cautions against the emotional reaction of dismissing the Church and all its priests and bishops, when the root cause of the sexual abuse scandal can be identified.
“[L]et’s be clear,” he writes. “This scandal is about HOMOSEXUALITY.”
Zuhlsdorf continues about a corporate-like cronyism among the activist homosexual hierarchy:
I do not buy the claims that a high number of priests are homosexual. But I do indeed buy that that percentage is higher among those who have power. The Boys Club perpetuated itself by grooming with preferential treatment of certain likely fellows. They made sure that they went to Rome, which could help a future career, or they got the chance at higher studies, the key role in the chancery, the roles that would be good on the CV …
Monsignor Charles Pope also writes at National Catholic Register that, despite the horror of the allegations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, “the majority of priests and bishops have been faithful and are zealous and generous servants.”
Pope notes the 2004 John Jay Report (The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950-2002) found that 81 percent of sexual abuse victims were male and 78 percent were post-pubescent.
“This is not pedophilia,” Pope asserts. “It is homosexual attraction. Regarding the sexual abuse and harassment of seminarians or priests by bishops or other clergy, obviously 100 percent of those victims were male. In summary, the large majority of the cases involve sexual misbehavior by priests with same-sex attraction.”
In a report at Catholic News Agency (CNA) that details new allegations concerning McCarrick – who once served as archbishop of Newark, New Jersey – and other priests in the Newark archdiocese, Father Desmond Rossi says he was a seminarian in Newark in 1988 when two deacons on the path to the priesthood sexually abused him.
CNA reports:
According to Father Rossi, he told archdiocesan authorities about the assault and went before a review board. He said that his story was “found credible, but nothing happened.” Instead, he claims the archdiocese turned against him for bringing the allegation forward.
“They tried to turn it on me,” Father Rossi said.
Father Rossi eventually left the archdiocese and now serves as a priest in the Diocese of Albany. In 2004, the Archdiocese of Newark agreed to an out-of-court settlement of approximately $35,000 with Father Rossi in response to his accusations. At least one of the alleged abusers is still in active ministry in the Archdiocese of Newark, Father Rossi said.
CNA states that while Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the current archbishop of Newark, declined to confirm the name of the accused priest, several priests who spoke to CNA, under condition of anonymity due to concerns about repercussions from Church hierarchy, identified him as Father James Weiner, a man known for his active homosexual lifestyle from the time he was a seminarian.
The priests told CNA Weiner is known for hosting cocktail parties in his rectory that are attended by other homosexual priests.
According to the report:
One recalled that he attended a cocktail party, thinking he had been invited to a simple priests’ dinner. “I was led into the room to a chorus of wolf-whistles,” he said. “It was clear right away I was ‘on display.’”
Another priest told CNA that he was also invited to a party hosted by the priest. “They were all carrying big mixed drinks, pink ones, it was like something out of Sex in the City.”
He recalled that after asking for a beer, he was told by his host, “You need to try something more girly tonight.”
All recounted overtly sexual conversation at the cocktail parties. “I was fresh meat and they were trying me out,” one priest said.
All three said they left quickly upon realizing what was going on. “Everyone was getting loaded and getting closer on the couches, I wanted out of there,” a priest told CNA.
“Everyone kept calling me a ‘looker’ and saying they had to ‘keep me around’ from now on,” a third Newark priest told CNA.
One priest told CNA that McCarrick would often place his hand on the thighs of seminarians while seated near them.
“It was really unnerving. On the one hand you knew — knew — what was going on but you couldn’t believe it,” he reportedly said.
Another priest said McCarrick would invite the young men to a house at the shore or to stay overnight at the cathedral rectory in Newark.
“Priests would tell me ‘he’s sleeping with them’ all the time, but I couldn’t believe it — they seemed like perfectly normal guys,” the priest told CNA.
Pope observes the media is pressing to downplay the ties of the sex abuse scandal to activist homosexuals.
“[A]ny conversation that seeks to find real traction or solutions is going to have to include the connection to homosexuality — not as a single cause, but as an essential and highly important one,” he asserts. “And honest discussion must also include analyses of institutional problems such as secrecy, unaccountability, abuse of power, and so on.”
Pope warns that acquiescence to the media’s push for political correctness will only exacerbate the problem for the Church and its people.
“[I]t is time for a truthful conversation free from political correctness and forbidden topics,” he states. “If our bishops are not willing to engage a full and honest airing of all the causes, the anger of God’s people will only increase, and the credibility of the bishops and the Church will sink from near zero to absolute zero.”
In his response to the Pennsylvania grand jury report, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, also challenges the assertion the alleged abusive priests were all “pedophiles.”
“This is the greatest lie of them all, repeated non-stop by the media, and late-night talk TV hosts,” he writes. “There have been two scandals related to the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church. Scandal I involves the enabling bishops who covered it up. Scandal II involves the media cover-up of the role played by gay molesters.”
Donohue succinctly delivers his warning to the Church.
“Let me repeat what I have often said,” he asserts. “Most gay priests are not molesters, but most of the molesters have been gay. Not to admit this—and this includes many bishops who are still living in a state of denial about it— means the problem will continue.”
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