ACKNOWLEDGING THE SEXUAL NATURE OF PRIESTS AND NUNS

Catholic laity need to know the truth

As most U.S. dioceses have witnessed the closure of numerous churches owing to a more than 40 percent decline in priests over the past 50 years, Church leaders do not want potential heterosexual seminarians or the laity to know the truth about: 1) The high percentage of homosexual bishops, priests, and seminarians outside of Africa and Asia; and 2) The astronomical celibacy failure rate among both heterosexual and homosexual clergy and religious.

With the election of Pope Leo XIV, Catholics who have witnessed the closure of countless churches are praying that there will be an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life. The only problem is that, as a former religious superior and bishop of a diocese in which he supervised many priests and deacons, Pope Leo knows both from experience and studies by Dariusz Oko, James G. Wolf, and the late A.W. Richard Sipe that, any given moment in time, about half of all priests are sexually involved with men or women. Most priests in Africa are heterosexuals, many who have children, while the vast majority of U.S. Roman Catholic clergy are homosexuals.

For decades the Church has not only covered up the sexual abuse of minors, but also of vulnerable adults like seminarians, novices, and nuns. A recent article by Dr. Jules Gomes calls attention not only to how priests sexually abuse religious women, often causing them to become pregnant, but also how “lesbian nuns abuse sisters in convents.” Church leaders don’t want to acknowledge how the percentage of lesbians in religious communities has grown like the percentage of homosexuals in the priesthood,

Research, confirming the high percentage of homosexual clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, supports arguments dating back to the twelfth century that the imposition of mandatory celibacy for diocesan clergy would result in an increase in the percentage of homosexual popes, bishops, priests, and seminarians. In addition to discovering that fewer than 50 percent of Roman Catholic priests at any given moment practice celibacy, Sipe also estimated that only 2 percent achieve total celibate chastity throughout their lives following ordination.

When asked about the validity of studies by Sipe and others, Cardinal Jose Sanchez, a former Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy responsible for overseeing matters regarding priests and deacons, responded, “I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of those figures.” Contrast that statistic with the U.S. adultery rate in which 20% of men and 13% of women report having had one or more affairs. This might be a reason why Judaism views celibacy as a deviation from the natural order of creation and an impossible promise for most human beings to keep.

Devout, faithful Catholics tend to project fidelity onto priests and nuns. When a woman argued that priestly celibacy was a gift from God and that allowing priests to marry would make them less available to serve God’s people, I was tempted to inform her that her pastor had fathered two children during his almost 50 years of priesthood. When I was visiting friends in South Carolina and a young man asked if I knew a priest he liked who just seemed to “disappear,” I informed him that the priest, a North American College alumnus like myself, married another man and was living in Canada. As the percentage of American homosexual priests has risen over the past decades, some refuse to continue leading double lives unlike most sexually active closeted bishops and priests.

Similar to Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) policies that were intrinsically discriminatory and had a major impact on military retention which resulted in higher recruiting goals that were not being met, so too did the acceptance and ordination of homosexuals have a negative impact on the recruitment and retention of heterosexual seminarians and priests. Just as straight men would feel very uncomfortable if they were to walk into a gay bar by mistake, so too do straight men feel uncomfortable in seminaries, dioceses, and religious orders populated mainly by homosexuals. Closeted homosexual bishops, vocation directors, seminary rectors and faculty members will go out of their way to hide their sexual orientation from straight seminarians and the laity knowing that most straight young men do not want to join an essentially gay organization.

Unless Pope Leo disciplines the numerous homosexual bishops and priests who are responsible for the loss of thousands of seminarians who were unjustly dismissed or coerced into leaving the seminary, no Catholic parent, in my opinion, should allow his or her heterosexually oriented son to study for the priesthood. If I would have reported a homosexual for attempting to proposition me when I was in the seminary, the gay seminarian or faculty member would have been dismissed. Today, however, countless former straight seminarians like Anthony Gorgia, and straight priests like Father Michael Briese, are punished by complicit prelates for reporting priests like Washington Father Adam Park who was cited in sworn court documents for preying on vulnerable seminarians at the North American College (NAC) in Rome. If the Pope is willing to tolerate homosexual predation at a seminary located just a half mile (800 meters) from his Vatican quarters, then one should not expect him to correct this same problem in other seminaries around the world.

Just as Cardinal Robert McElroy allowed accused Father Jacob Bertrand who satanically sexually abused Rachel Mastrogiacomo to remain in ministry in the San Diego Diocese, so too is he allowing Washington Fathers Adam Park and Carter Griffin to remain in ministry in the Archdiocese of Washington despite credible allegations of sexual predation and homosexual misconduct. While Church leaders would like the faithful to believe that seminaries are no longer infested with homosexual priests and seminarians who prey on vulnerable seminarians while engaging in homosexual acts with one another, why are so many former seminarians like Gorgia, Joshua Metcalf, Timothy Passow and others filing suit in civil courts? Why are priests like Park and Griffin not being investigated while prelates like Dolan and McElroy are not disciplined for covering up sexual predation and homosexual misconduct? Until Pope Leo takes concrete steps to address these problems, one should not be surprised if the recruitment and retention of heterosexual clergy in the Roman Catholic Church continues to suffer.

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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.