COMPLICIT CATHOLIC MEDIA
I thought my Substack readers might be interested in the following email I sent on August 24, 2024 to Catholic publishers, editors, and journalists:
As many Catholic lay publishers, editors, and reporters know, my work as a sex abuse victims’ advocate and investigative journalist involves mainly former seminarians and priests who were “canceled” because they reported abuse that they or others experienced at the hands of predator bishops, priests, or seminarians.
About a month ago, I submitted a manuscript for publication entitled “Reflections on the State of the Church.” When no Catholic media source accepted it for publication, I created a Substack account and self-published it at:
https://johneighteenthirtyseven.substack.com/p/reflections-on-the-state-of-the-church
In the seventh paragraph, I wrote:
Until recently, there were just two seminarians in formation for our diocese who were both sent to St. Mary Seminary in Baltimore which an alumnus referred to as “The Pink Palace.” Like Karl Discher and other former straight seminarians who attended St. Mary Seminary, both of these seminarians dropped out within the past year leaving no men studying for the priesthood in our diocese.
Why is it this week that a secular news outlet, ABC news affiliate WMAR of Baltimore, reported what the Catholic media refused to publish when they ran the following story: “Alleged sex abuse victim suing St. Mary's Seminary”?
Why are Catholic media outlets afraid to tell the truth about the real state of Catholic seminaries in the US today like Cardinal Edwin O’Brien lied about the state of US seminaries when he undertook the 2005-2006 US Seminary Investigation? Had it not been for Rod Dreher who wrote, “The Two Faces of Cardinal O’Brien,” everyone would have believed what CNA, The Catholic Register, and other Catholic media sources reported about the whitewashed study. Please note that after O’Brien covered up the true state of US seminaries, he was made a cardinal and appointed to the See of Baltimore, the home of “The Pink Palace.”
Can anyone explain to me why Catholic lay media representatives are covering up the homosexual cultures in US seminaries and the loss of thousands of straight seminarians? Even when I get a lawyer to confront lying Catholic lay media sources like EWTN/CNA as evidenced in this August 8, 2022 letter, they still refuse to publish a retraction and tell the truth.
I can only conclude that Catholic lay media representatives fear vocations will continue to decline, and even more churches will close if the true state of US seminaries today as documented in “Addressing the Present-Day Culture of Sexual Predation and Cover-Ups in U.S. Seminaries” comes to light. How naive are those Catholics who equate young, conservative Catholic seminarians who enjoy wearing birettas and cassocks and are interested in the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) as being straight? Rest assured that the two seminarians from my diocese who were sent to “The Pink Palace” did not leave because of what was being taught in their theology courses. It is also no coincidence that O'Brien's successor, Archbishop William Lori, along with Cardinal Christophe Pierre, covered up Karl Discher's abuse, just like Lori continues to cover up how former seminarian, Wieslaw Walavender, was drugged and sodomized by Msgr. Edward Staub in the rectory of St. John the Evangelist Church in Severna Park, MD. That crime will continue to be covered-up unless MD legislators expand the statute of limitations to include abuse victims who were vulnerable adults at the time of the sexual assault.
My classmate who was ordained next to me in 1974 studied at “The Pink Palace” before he was later caught preying on high school students just like he was groomed and preyed upon in Baltimore. He was removed from ministry and died recently living alone in the home of his deceased parents. As long as Church leaders and the Catholic media continue to cover up the true state of Catholic seminaries as Cardinal O’Brien did almost twenty years ago, we can expect more abuse, especially of teenage boys and vulnerable adults, and more homosexual misconduct in episcopal residences and rectories as documented in “Illinois Orgy: The Rome Connection.”
Semper Fidelis,