CARDINAL MCELROY IS NO DIARMUID MARTIN

More cover-ups by McElroy predicted in Washington

With the announcement that San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy will replace Cardinal Wilton Gregory as the Archbishop of Washington, many Catholics view the appointment as a continuation of the poor leadership that began with the installation of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in January 2001. Despite what the mainstream media might report about the degrees earned by McElroy, most informed Washington Catholics are not excited about McElroy’s support for open borders and his very vocal pro-LGBTQ stance.

In order to understand the McElroy-Gregory-Wuerl-McCarrick appointments, one has to go back in time to May 2003 when Diarmuid Martin was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Dublin. Although raised and educated in Dublin, Martin spent most of his life as a priest and bishop outside of Ireland working in the diplomatic service of the Holy See. Martin was recalled to Ireland to replace Cardinal Desmond Connell (1988-2004) who was heavily criticized for inaction, making misleading statements and covering up clerical sex abuse in Dublin. All three of Connell’s predecessors, Archbishop John McQuaid (1940-1972), Archbishop Dermot Ryan (1972-1984), and Archbishop Kevin McNamara (1984-1987) were also accused of covering up clerical sexual abuse.

Just as McElroy’s job will be to protect the legacies of Gregory, Wuerl, and McCarrick from scrutiny, so too was Martin supposed to cover up for Connell, McNamara, Ryan, and McQuaid. It seems, however, that Martin was never properly briefed by the Secretariat of State on his mission because he turned over some 80,000 archdiocesan files to the Murphy Commission that revealed decades of abuse and cover-ups by his predecessors. As a result of his transparency, Pope Francis, who himself was documented by French investigative journalist, Martin Boudot, to have covered up countless abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, never made Martin a cardinal.

One of the main qualifications for being made a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church today is one’s proven ability to cover up abuse. Certainly, McElroy has proven himself capable in this regard by the way he dealt in San Diego with the abuse of Rachel Mastrogiacomo by Father Jacob Bertrand, as well as how he covered up the abuse cases of twelve seminarians and priests that were reported to him by the late psychotherapist Richard Sipe in July 2016.

What no journalist or news commentator has addressed is why McElroy, like Pope Francis who appointed him, is such a cover-up artist. In order to learn the answer to that question, one has to go back in time to 1980 when McElroy was ordained a priest by San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn. McElroy served as Quinn’s priest-secretary from 1982 to 1985, and later as Quinn's Vicar General. One of Quinn’s close friends was Father Nicholas Reveles who was accused of drugging and sodomizing Mark Brooks, a U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam veteran who was enrolled in St. Francis Seminary. Reveles denied sodomizing Brooks who was expelled from the seminary and left destitute and homeless. However, after Reveles later left the priesthood to pursue an open gay lifestyle, the Diocese of San Diego settled out of court twice with Brooks who later reported catching Reveles and Quinn watching gay porn together. Brooks, like many abuse victims, died prematurely in 2010 at the age of 56. Quinn, whose cause of death was not publicly announced, met his maker in 2017 at the age of 88 with McElroy presiding at his vigil. A screenplay, “Den of Iniquity,” inspired by the life of Mark Brooks, involves “a Marine Corps veteran unjustly dismissed from a Catholic seminary after reporting being sexually assaulted who teams up with an attractive Jewish lawyer to uncover a trail of sex trafficking and murder that threatens a cardinal’s aspirations of becoming the first American pope.”

Many seminarians who were groomed in the seminary are often ordained to see the seminary priest faculty member who introduced them to gay sex be made a bishop. Those bishops often make the men they groomed their secretaries, vocation directors, seminary rectors, and vicar generals. In some cases these protégés become bishops themselves; in other cases they get into trouble if they are reported for grooming and abusing seminarians as they themselves were groomed and abused.

Father Adam Park was ordained in 2005 by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for the Archdiocese of Washington. Unlike heterosexually oriented Father Mark White who was also ordained by McCarrick in 2003 and who was removed by alleged homosexual Bishop Barry Knestout after speaking out against Church leaders like McCarrick and Wuerl, Park was made Wuerl’s secretary from 2008-2012. In 2017 Park was named vice rector of the North American College (NAC) in Rome, a position he held until he was scandalously removed in 2021 after a multi-million dollar lawsuit was filed against the Archdiocese of New York and the NAC. The lawsuit alleges that former New York Archdiocese seminarian, Anthony Gorgia, was prevented from continuing his studies in Rome after he witnessed and began learning of allegations that Park was preying on fellow seminarians.

Even though Park was accused of sexual predation and homosexual misconduct by both heterosexually and homosexually oriented seminarians and priests, Cardinal Gregory continues to keep Park in ministry just like McElroy kept Bertrand in ministry after being credibly accused of satanically sexually abusing Rachel Mastrogiacomo. Father Michael Briese, an inspiring priest revered for serving the poor and homeless, confronted Gregory for endangering young people by not removing Park from ministry. In response, Gregory suspended Briese who then felt compelled to report Park to law enforcement as a potential sex offender. Park is not the only alleged predator priest Gregory has been accused of protecting. Father Carter Griffin, the rector of St. John Paul Seminary who was ordained by McCarrick and served as priest-secretary to Wuerl, was accused of sexually harassing a seminarian. Father Juan Fernando Arieza and Monsignor Walter Rossi, the rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, are two of the more notable alleged homosexual clerics whose behavior Gregory was accused of covering up in Atlanta and Washington.

When Father Ryszard Biernat reported Bishop Richard Malone to the media for covering up for sexual predators in the Buffalo Diocese, Malone suspended the whistleblower priest the day before he left his office in disgrace. When Bishop Michael Fisher was installed as Malone’s successor, he did not return Biernat to ministry after his clearly unjust and vindictive suspension. Insofar as Fisher was McCarrick’s vicar general; was ordained an auxiliary bishop by Wuerl; and was recommended to be made the Bishop of Buffalo by Gregory, it comes as no surprise that Fisher would not want a whistleblower priest who cannot observe the Church’s “Code of Silence” serving in his diocese.

Because bishops often rid themselves of whistleblower priests and seminarians like Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich suspended Father Paul Kalchik; Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout suspended Father Mark White; and New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan coerced former Staten Island Seminarian Anthony Gorgia into leaving formation, it is highly likely that when McElroy comes to Washington he will treat Briese the same way Fisher treated Biernat. One can also anticipate that McElroy’s cover-up for Park, like his past cover-up for Bertrand, will never be reported in the mainstream or Catholic media. Additionally, McElroy should also be expected to oppose having his chancery raided by law enforcement officials in search of evidence of criminal cover-ups as part of the Church’s widening sex abuse scandal.

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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.