Research shows that 65% of U.S. Catholics support same-sex marriage, influenced to a degree in recent years by homosexual popes, bishops, and priests who today make up the majority of Catholic clergy outside of Africa and a few countries. Many Catholics also say that it’s OK to ordain homosexual seminarians provided they, like heterosexual clerics, lead celibate/chaste lives. In advocating this position, these Catholics fail to differentiate clearly between chastity, a vow taken by religious clergy, and celibacy, a promise made by diocesan clergy.
Even though religious priests, brothers, and nuns take the vow of chastity, all Catholics, both married and single, are called to practice chastity, which means abstaining from sexual relations with someone who is not your married spouse. Celibacy, on the other hand, means not being married. And because the Catholic Church does not recognize same-sex marriages, celibacy is understood to mean not being married to a person of the opposite sex.
What many Catholics fail to understand is that there is a huge difference between abstaining from sex and “abstaining” from marriage insofar as marriage involves far more than just engaging in sexual relations. Catholics who equate celibacy to chastity by saying that it doesn’t matter if a priest is straight or gay as long as he abstains from sex are essentially saying that straight and gay men are both making the same sacrifice. In truth, however, this is not the case, especially when homosexual clergy are psychosexually incapable of marrying a woman and having children.
Imagine you are a factory owner whose employees perform the same functions on an assembly line. If you paid women who worked eight hours the same amount as men who worked only one hour, how many women would want to work in your factory? If homosexual clergy greatly outnumber straight bishops, priests, and seminarians today, could it be because heterosexuals are asked to sacrifice infinitely more than homosexuals who psychologically have no desire to have a wife and children?
Consider how Scott Vincent Borba, a very wealthy, homosexually-oriented seminarian, was recently ordained for the Diocese of Fresno. While I esteem him for abandoning his gay lifestyle and affirming the Catholic Church’s position on the immorality of homosexual behavior, I was not moved by multiple media reports that made no mention of his spiritual conversion and focused solely on how he gave up wealth and notoriety to become a priest. If you were to ask Catholics to name another priest, thought to be straight, who was ordained with him that same day, hardly anyone could name him without doing an Internet search. Catholics who lauded the homosexually oriented priest on Facebook, in news publications, and in televised interviews while ignoring the straight priest who sacrificed something infinitely more valuable (i.e., a wife and children), should not be surprised that their “Church factory” employs far more homosexuals than heterosexuals.
Roman Catholics, particularly those who oppose optional celibacy for diocesan clergy as has always been practiced in the Eastern Rite Catholic Church, need to know that as long as celibacy remains mandatory, homosexual clergy will always outnumber straight clergy because straight clerics are asked to sacrifice much more than homosexual clergy. Also, given the difference in sexual partnering rates (67 for gay men and 10 for straight men aged 35-39), one can expect homosexual priests to be more sexually active than straight priests.
St. Peter Damien (1007-1072), in the Book of Gomorrah, documented how religious orders were infested with homosexuals. Shortly thereafter, Pope Innocent II (1130-1143), a Cluniac Monk, convened the Second Lateran Council and not only required celibacy for diocesan priests, but also invalidated the marriages of priests who were already married. Those straight priests who refused to abandon their wives and children had to find other employment.
One can only wonder if Pope Innocent II, who hailed from a religious order, might have been a heterophobic closeted homosexual who imposed celibacy on married diocesan clergy while living in the company of other homosexual monks, just like Pope Francis (a Jesuit) lived in the Casa Santa Marta with his close friend, the infamous promiscuous gay (“Who am I to judge?”) Msgr. Battista Ricca. One might also question why Pope Leo, an Augustinian whose religious order is believed to have very few straight clerics left in its ranks, and who cohabitates with his 36-year-old secretary, Msgr. Edgard Iván Rimaycuna Inga, requires that straight diocesan priests eat and live “home alone” while he and other perceived Vatican homosexual clergy enjoy each other’s “fraternal companionship.”
One reason many straight and closeted gay priests don’t mix is that many straight priests believe that gay priests get ordained to hide their same-sex attraction from others while leading a comfortable closeted existence. If a straight young man attended a seminary like the North American College in Rome that, over the years, covered up allegations of sexual predation, homosexual misconduct, and high HIV rates under different rectors, might he be inclined to question if his gay classmates intended to lead truly chaste lives?
In the course of my travels throughout the country, I met a straight pastor who impressed me with his heavy pastoral counseling schedule and his standing-room-only liturgies. I found him to be the exception to the rule in most parishes today. How many people pay to meet with therapists today who, in the past, might have been counseled by their straight parish priest? Even if a parishioner seeks counsel from a priest today, what advice might he or she receive? A teenager related how he went to confession to a young parochial vicar and confessed having had sex with his girlfriend. When the rather effeminate priest asked the teen if he wore a condom and the teenager answered affirmatively, the priest told the boy that what he did was not a sin. What might happen if a teenager were to confide in a gay priest that he was struggling with gender dysphoria? What advice might he receive? I very much doubt that the priest would share evidence published by the Ruth Institute showing how sexual orientation can change, and therapy can help.
Why is it that so few Catholics can articulate why the Catholic Church’s official position on homosexuality is different from that of many mainline Protestant Churches but in line with Evangelical, Scripture-based Churches like the Missouri Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church? Might it be because their pro-LGBTQ pastor is like many of the pro-LGBTQ bishops recently appointed by Pope Leo XIV?
My concern is not just the potential gay priests have for the sexual abuse of young men owing to studies like The Gay Report, which reveals that “73 percent of homosexuals acknowledged having preyed on adolescents or younger boys,” but also how Catholics are slowly being indoctrinated into accepting the LGBTQ agenda while being deprived of pastoral counseling and other services that were offered in the past by heterosexual priests. It is because of this growing vacuum of pastoral support that I decided to revise and recently republish The Survival Guide for Marriage in the Military for dating and married couples.
When “Dear Abbey” received a letter from a girl who wanted some help before saying “I do,” she responded by writing, “I recently received a book in the mail that you and your boyfriend might find helpful. It is very well done, easy to read, and jargon-free, and although it was written for military couples whose marriages can be subject to extreme stresses, it can provide food for thought to civilian couples as well.” As I invite my Substack readers to read reviews of my book available at www.gomulka.org, I ask that you join me in praying that The Survival Guide may help lower divorce rates, build resilience, and promote many happy, lifelong marriages.
While my Substack articles are free, if you find them informative and would like to help me continue researching and writing, please make a donation by clicking HERE.
Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, author, 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.
Monsignor —
Celibacy is not chastity with a different collar. A straight man lays down a wife and children he could have had. A man who cannot desire that marriage is not making the same offering. Catholics who say “as long as nobody has sex” have flattened the promise into a bedroom rule and then wonder why the factory hires the shorter shift.
Eastern churches kept married diocesan clergy. Rome bound the Latin parish priest to live alone and then filled the house with a different majority. The teenager in the box who is told a condom erases the sin is the fruit. So is the parish that no longer has a father to counsel a marriage.
You do not have to win every historical maybe about Lateran II to see the present: appointments that catechize the opposite of Leviticus, and a vacuum where straight pastors used to sit. The Guide is the practical answer while the pulpit is occupied.
Semper Fi Brother and have a Blessed day Sir 🙏
Father Gene on my 25th anniversary of ordination to the Holy Priesthood of Melchizedek May 31st, I stated that priestly celibacy is not the avoidance of the responsibilities of matrimonial fatherhood, but the spiritual, moral and religious freedom to be a spiritual father to the entire human race not just my fellow members of the Mystical Body of Christ
In case you are interested Father Gene, or anyone else, my homily is online for May 31, 2026 on the Fathers of Mercy you tube
BTW I have preached hundred of homilies on abortion, artificial contraception in my 25 years as an missionary preacher with the Eucharistic solution to the myriad problems of the day