A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL?

Cardinal Gregory attempts to force whistleblower priest into silence

The People of God expect their priests to be “fathers” who guard the flock against corruption and who are voices of truth when it is most needed. The thanks Washington Father Michael Briese received for doing this was to have his faculties revoked over three years ago by Cardinal Wilton Gregory whom he confronted for shielding accused sexual predators, Fathers Adam Park and Carter Griffin, and whom he called upon to address allegations that Gregory himself engaged in homosexual misconduct while he was Archbishop of Atlanta.

Briese has raised concerns that for more than three years, Gregory has ignored the credible sworn affidavits of multiple seminarians reporting that Park preyed on seminarians at the North American College (NAC) in Rome and engaged in homosexual misconduct in the Washington Archdiocese. While Park, who is a defendant in a multi-million-dollar lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, abruptly resigned from his post as the NAC’s vice-rector in 2021 when these affidavits became public, Gregory continues to cover for him by allowing him to remain in ministry in the Washington Archdiocese. Having been mentored and ordained by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and having worked as the personal secretary for disgraced Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Park knows all the intimate secrets of McCarrick, Wuerl, and Gregory and will be protected like Al Capone attempted to protect his accountant from Eliot Ness.

Briese has also questioned why Gregory is still allowing Father Carter Griffin to serve as rector of St. John Paul II Seminary after he was accused of sexually harassing seminarians at the Washington based seminary. One former seminarian’s allegations are supported by hundreds of pages of documentary evidence. When Griffin was personally asked whether either Gregory or the Apostolic Nuncio, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, had him investigated as a result of the sexual misconduct complaint that was sent to Pierre at the Apostolic Nunciature, Griffin admitted that he was not aware of any such investigation.

After more than three years of fighting for his priesthood and spending thousands of dollars to retain a canon lawyer, Briese received a letter from Gregory on January 11, 2025 indicating that he will remain sidelined from ministry. Gregory’s letter threatens Briese with “dismissal from the clerical state” if he does not retract “accusations or implications of immorality or sexual or official misconduct” that he “made or repeated against the persons mentioned in his writings.” Interestingly, the document Gregory sent Briese does not identify what exactly Briese said or did to merit the punishment. Briese is currently in a situation similar to someone who is being offered a lesser sentence by a district attorney if he pleads guilty. However, because the defendant is innocent of the charge, he is reluctant to accept the “deal” and go to jail for a crime he never committed. Briese in conscience cannot retract the accusations because he believes them to be true based on the testimony of multiple witnesses found credible by a former Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Gregory has explicitly warned Briese not to reveal to “the press or the media” the terms of the “retraction” agreement prepared by his canon lawyer. This threat resembles how a kidnaper who does not want to be caught instructs the parents of an abducted child “not to go to the police.”

Dr. Alessandro Fanella, who studied canon law in Rome where he was born, has proven that Gregory and his canon lawyer, Father George E. Stuart, have no justification to punish or seek Briese’s removal from the priesthood, especially at a time when Church leaders ostensibly claim that they have “zero tolerance” for sex abuse and cover-ups. With direct quotations from Briese’s Substack writings and letters from countless witnesses, Fanella proved that Briese did not make calumnious statements about the Cardinal or anyone else, nor did he urge Catholics of the Archdiocese to disrespect him. Unfortunately, Gregory refused to review Briese’s evidence and rejected all of Fanella’s requests that Briese be restored to ministry without considering his well-reasoned and well-documented defense.

Gregory’s treatment of Briese is reminiscent of the way Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout, McCarrick’s former secretary and Wuerl’s former Vicar General, removed Father Mark White from ministry after he addressed in his blog how McCarrick engaged in sexual abuse and how Wuerl denied knowledge of it despite the fact that Bishop Steven Lopes said, “We all knew.” Just as Knestout wanted White to remove his blog and apologize for posting “calumnious” statements about McCarrick and Wuerl, so too does Gregory want Briese to retract statements he made about him, Park, and Griffin. While Knestout is considered a protege of sexual predator, ex-Cardinal McCarrick, Gregory was mentored and promoted by the late accused sexual predator Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.

U.S. Bishops like Gregory, Knestout, and others have a history of getting clerics to stop addressing clerical sex abuse and cover-ups under threats of suspension, laicization, or even excommunication. When Polish seminarian Ryszard Biernat reported being sexually assaulted by Father Art Smith, Biernat stated that Buffalo Auxiliary Bishop Edward Grosz blackmailed him by threatening to send him back to Poland never to be ordained if he spoke about what happened to him. Because he felt called by Christ to be a priest, Biernat accepted the “deal,” kept his mouth shut, and was later ordained. Unfortunately, while working as Bishop Richard Malone’s secretary, he learned that the abuse he was coerced into not reporting was only one of many abuse cases being covered up by Buffalo diocesan officials. When he shared evidence of these cover-ups with the media, he was suspended by Malone who was forced to retire in disgrace.

Malone’s successor, Bishop Michael Fisher, a protege of McCarrick, Wuerl, and Gregory, did not restore Biernat to ministry after he was forced to find a job as a maintenance man in order to support himself. Biernat was around 30 and healthy when he was unjustly dismissed, while Briese is almost 70 and in poor health owing to the emotional stress and physical problems his ongoing suspension has caused him. Incoming Washington Cardinal Robert McElroy, who covered up the satanic sexual abuse of Rachel Mastrogiacomo and the abuse of 12 seminarians and priests reported to him by the late famed psychotherapist, Richard Sipe, is not expected to handle Briese any differently than how Fisher dealt with Biernat.

Briese is also hesitant to comply with Gregory’s cover-up order after consulting with former Polish seminarian, Wieslaw Walawender. On March 23, 1996, Walawender was drugged and sodomized by his pastor, Monsignor Edward Staub, in the rectory of St. John the Evangelist Church in Severna Park, MD. After reporting the sexual assault to Baltimore Archdiocese and seminary officials, Walawender was offered a “deal” similar to the one Biernat received if he signed a “Conciliation Agreement.” Walawender essentially agreed not to report Staub’s assault and the cover-up by Cardinal William Keeler in exchange for being ordained. After having spent eight years of his life preparing to be a priest in the U.S., Walawender accepted the “deal” instead of returning to Poland with simply a degree in theology from an obscure U.S. seminary. Unfortunately, while Walawender was ordained to the diaconate, before being ordained a priest he was literally thrown into the street by Keeler who feared he might one day publish the “Conciliation Agreement” showing how the archdiocese covered up his criminal sexual assault. To cover up Walawender’s ousting, St. John the Evangelist parishioners were told a fabricated story that Walawender decided not to be ordained, but to return to Poland where he had a girlfriend he intended to marry. Walawender refused to accept a one-way plane ticket back to Poland and ended up becoming a truck driver.

Both Biernat and Walawender regret allowing themselves to be taken advantage of and not reporting sexual assault and criminal cover-ups they cannot pursue today owing to the statute of limitations. Walawender fears that by following Gregory’s order, Briese would in effect be forced into lying by claiming that the allegations of sexual predation on Park’s and Griffin’s parts were false and that Gregory is not covering up for them. The kind of fraudulent retraction Gregory is demanding from Briese could then be used to try to “exonerate” Gregory in a Vos Estis Lux Mundi probe designed to hold bishops accountable for covering up abuse.

In truth, because Gregory never removed Park and Griffin from ministry and failed to have them investigated in keeping with the Safe Environment Guidelines published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), should not Cardinal Gregory (and accused predators Park and Griffin), and not Father Briese, be the ones removed from ministry?

Cardinal Gregory’s lawyers may wish to remind him of what can happen when a bishop reprises against a whistleblower priest. Monsignor Philip Saylor reported to Bishop James Hogan of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese that Father Francis Luddy was accused of abusing a teenage boy. After Hogan failed to discipline Luddy and later retired, the victim brought suit against Luddy for abusing him and against the Diocese for covering it up. It was Saylor’s testimony showing how Luddy was left in ministry for years after he was reported that resulted in the diocese losing the case. The diocese paid $21.5 million for its mishandling of abuse cases which forced the diocese to sell its chancery building and the Bishop’s Episcopal Residence. In retaliation for his court testimony, Hogan’s successor, Bishop Joseph Adamec, not only transferred Saylor from the most prestigious parish in the diocese to a small, remote church, but he also threatened him with laicization and the loss of his pension if he did not accept a “precept of silence” similar to the gag order Gregory is imposing upon Briese.

Adamec may have won the battle by isolating and silencing Saylor which moved him to request early retirement for health reasons. However, Adamec lost the war when Pennsylvania legislators with whom Saylor worked while serving on the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference learned of Saylor’s unjust treatment which led to the convening of the 37th Pennsylvania Grand Jury Investigation that uncovered more than 50 abusive priests that constituted some 40% of the Altoona-Johnstown clergy. When called to testify, Adamec often “took the Fifth” and was later forced to retire in disgrace. The findings of this PA Grand Jury led the Attorney General to convene the 40th Pennsylvania Grand Jury Investigation of six more PA dioceses which in August of 2018 reported 301 predator priests of having abused over 1,000 victims. Unlike Bishop Fisher who did not restore Biernat to ministry, Adamec’s successor, Bishop Mark Bartchak, lifted the restrictions Adamec had imposed on Saylor and allowed him to function as the pastor emeritus in the prestigious parish from which he was unjustly removed.

If Gregory were to get rid of Briese, and if his successor, Cardinal Robert McElroy, were not to restore him to ministry as Bartchak did with Saylor, might news of his whistleblower case give way in time to more legislators calling for Grand Jury Investigations? McElroy failed in his efforts to get California legislators to overturn California Law AB 218 which created a three-year window for abuse survivors to file claims against alleged perpetrators. His defeat led him to file for bankruptcy in 2024 after 457 sex abuse claims estimated to cost $600 million were filed against the San Diego Diocese. Might Gregory’s mishandling of the Briese case result in a landmark lawsuit or move more states to lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases? The Catholic Church in the U.S. was reported to have spent over $5 billion during the past two decades on abuse cases, plus several billion dollars before that period. So far 40 U.S. dioceses and religious orders have filed for bankruptcy protection in chapter 11.

As a result of the three-year suspension, Briese has suffered emotionally which has taken a serious toll on his physical health. He was hospitalized several times, even being transported on a number of occasions by ambulance to the Emergency Room. Not once did he receive a hospital visit from Gregory or a member of his chancery staff.

Many people who know Father Briese compare him to a male version of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint. Even before he was ordained a permanent deacon and later a priest, he was involved in helping the poor and homeless. Like many straight priests who have been removed from ministry by bishops perceived or accused of being closeted homosexuals, Briese understands why there are hardly any heterosexuals in seminaries today. Actions by prelates like Gregory against good, holy, straight priests will only further harm the recruitment and retention of heterosexuals and lead to the closure and consolidation of more Catholic churches around the country. The number of U.S. parishes with a resident priest dropped by 25 percent from around 16,000 in 1990 to around 12,000 in 2024.

Current Pennsylvania Governor and former PA Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, argued that the trail of abuse cover-ups leads all the way to the Vatican. Federal prosecutors arrested officials at the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) on charges of racketeering and money laundering under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The sex crimes that Catholic priests have committed across the globe are arguably far more harmful than anything FIFA executives are accused of. The way Gregory, McElroy, and the Vatican deal with Briese and his allegations of clerical sexual predation and homosexual misconduct could determine if the Department of Justice (DOJ) might file a RICO lawsuit against the Vatican, the Archdiocese of Washington, and other dioceses as already happened with the Diocese of Buffalo.

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Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, and screenwriter. A former Navy (O6) Captain/Chaplain, seminary instructor, and diocesan respect life director, Gomulka was ordained a priest for the Altoona-Johnstown diocese and later made a Prelate of Honor (Monsignor) by St. John Paul II. Email him at msgr.investigations@gmail.com.