CLERICAL HOMOSEXUALITY 101 FOR CATHOLICS

Exploring the historical celibacy connection

When I was in the seminary, I had no idea how many of my fellow seminarians were homosexuals. The reason is that we often project onto others what we see in ourselves. If a faithful husband sees a friend having dinner with a beautiful woman he knows is not his wife, he may approach him anticipating that the woman is a visiting relative or business partner. However, if an unfaithful husband sees a friend having dinner with a beautiful woman who is not his wife, he may not approach him, assuming that his friend is also having an affair. Had I been a sexually active homosexual seminarian, I would have been in a much better position to identify who was straight and who was gay amongst both the seminarians and the seminary faculty.

Women are often better than men in telling if a man is a heterosexual or homosexual. When I was at a social gathering in Israel dressed in civilian casual attire (as opposed to wearing my uniform showing that I was a chaplain), a beautiful Israeli woman approached me and it was clear that we shared a mutual physical attraction. When she sensed that I was not interested in more than just talking, she asked, “I don’t see a ring. Are you married?” I said, “No, I’m not married.” Then she said, “I can tell that you are not gay. So, if you’re not married, and you’re not gay, then what’s the problem?” When I told her what the “problem” was, she responded in Hebrew, “אוי שיט!” (“Oh, sh - -!”)

For three years, I studied with a seminarian, and then worked with him as a priest for another three years without ever knowing that he was a sexually active homosexual. It was only years later when he was dismissed from a seminary faculty and reported for preying on teenage boys that his sexual orientation became public. During our entire six years studying, living, and working together, I can recall for just one second how he glanced at me when I returned one day to the rectory all sweaty and pumped up from running and working out. It was like an attractive woman might feel if she sensed a man was undressing her with his eyes. I dismissed that passing feeling, only years later to believe that he may have been “eying me up.”

Because most people who identify themselves as “Catholic” are heterosexuals and are not engaged in adulterous behavior, they naturally want to believe that the pope, bishops, priests, and seminarians are straight and celibate. The problem is that they are wrong in both respects. Outside of Africa and Asia (particularly India), most Catholic clergy and seminarians today are homosexually oriented, and at any given moment in time, not more than half of all Roman (not Eastern) Catholic clergy are leading celibate lives.

When Peter Damien, a Benedictine monk and cardinal, wrote The Book of Gomorrah in the middle of the eleventh century, most of the clerical homosexual behavior was occurring in monastic communities involving priests from religious orders as most diocesan priests were married. It was around that same time, in 1054, that Christianity split between the Orthodox in the East and the (Roman) Catholics in the West. While Eastern Orthodoxy never abandoned the practice of allowing diocesan priests to marry which dates back to St. Peter the apostle, the Roman Catholic popes, most of whom were ordained for religious orders and never lived alone like diocesan priests, imposed mandatory celibacy on diocesan priests around the beginning of the twelfth century. Latin texts from that period uncovered by Cambridge scholar, Dr. Jules Gomes, show that opponents to mandatory celibacy for diocesan clergy who, up to that point were mostly married, warned that prohibiting diocesan priests from marrying would result in attracting large numbers of homosexuals who could live closeted lives just as diocesan priests as homosexual religious order priests had been doing for centuries.

The imposition of mandatory celibacy never worked for either heterosexual or homosexual diocesan or religious clergy as the lives of the fifteenth and sixteenth century popes reveal. Pope Paul II (1464-1471) is alleged to have died while being sodomized by a page. His successor, Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) was known to be a "lover of boys and sodomites," nominating a number of young men as cardinals, some of whom were known for their good looks. Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) had sexual relationships with two women, one before and one after his papal election, and both with whom he had illegitimate children. His successor, Pope Julius II (1503-1513), is said to have had three illegitimate daughters. Unlike Julius II, his heterosexually active predecessor, Pope Leo X (1513-1521) is remembered for having suffered from an anal fistula as the result of too much anal sex. Pope Paul III (1534-49) had fathered four illegitimate children by the time he was a cardinal. His homosexual successor, Pope Julius III (1550-1555), shared his bed with 15-year-old Innocenzo Ciocchi Del Monte whom he made a cardinal at the age of 17. Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585) had a son while he was studying for the priesthood making him the second to the last pope known to have had offspring. The last pope alleged to have had children is Pope Leo XII (1823-1829) who is said to have fathered three illegitimate children during his time as Nuncio in Germany.

Catholics who say that they are opposed to diocesan priests being allowed to marry do not want to hear stories of how bishops, priests, and seminarians, throughout the centuries, have shown themselves psychologically incapable of leading celibate lives. If “God saw that it was not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18) and Judaism rejected celibacy as an impossible commitment for most human beings to make, has the Roman Catholic Church set up its clergy for failure by ignoring the historical record and studies that show how no more than 2% of Catholic priests say that they observed clerical celibacy throughout their entire lives following ordination?

In light of the astronomically high percentage of closeted Roman Catholic homosexual clergy today, few Catholics will be presented with these facts. Homosexual bishops and priests are vociferously opposed to optional celibacy because they fear it would result in the outing of closeted homosexual clergy whom most Catholics want to assume are heterosexuals.

A Protestant homosexual young man in his late 20s, converted, entered the seminary, and was ordained a priest where he now leads a comfortable closeted life. Had he not converted, but had he been ordained a Protestant minister, his congregants would assume that, being single, he was a homosexual. Interestingly, he is the author today of books and videos extolling the virtue of priestly celibacy even though he himself was accused of preying on two former seminarians.

Anyone interested in this topic involving celibacy and homosexuality is encouraged to listen to an interview with Dr. Jules Gomes entitled, “Pederasty, Concubinage, Homosexuality: the Catholic Priesthood’s Unholy Trinity.”

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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.