DOES THE SEXUAL ORIENTATION OF THE POPE AND BISHOPS MATTER?

The clerical sexual abuse crisis in the Cathollic Church has demonstrated how clever predators are in covering up their predatory behavior just like homosexual clergy are good at covering up their sexual orientation and misconduct. Two young priests who lived with Monsignor Francis B. McCaa, whom the Pennsylvania Grand Jury identified as a sexual “monster,” had no idea that their supervisory pastor was sexually abusing boys in their Ebensburg parish. Likewise, when I served with Father Robert Kelly for three years and Father Martin Cingle for two years, both the pastor and I had no idea that they were abusing teenage boys in our State College parish. One reason this happens is that we often assume that people with whom we live and work are very much like ourselves. Consequently, priests and parishioners who would never even think of harming a child often think other coworkers feel and act the same way,

Because most Catholics are heterosexuals, they have a difficult time believing studies that show how over 80 percent of American-born bishops and priests today are homosexuals. Likewise, because most Catholic couples are faithful in marriage, they have a hard time believing studies that show how, at any given moment in time, no more than half of all priests are leading celibate lives. If it were not for my years of supervisory and confessional experience, I too might question these findings. Consequently, I am not surprised if a devout Catholic might say to me, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” However, when asked about the validity of studies involving the high celibacy failure rate, 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.”

Only a homosexual investigative reporter like Frédéric Martel could document in his book, In the Closet of the Vatican, how four in five clerics in the Vatican are homosexuals. The existence of “The Lavender Mafia” explains why most clerical sex abuse and homosexual misconduct goes unreported; why most offending clerics are not disciplined and removed from ministry; and why only 8 out of over 150 bishops who were publicly accused of abuse have been laicized to date.

While the majority of clerics outside of Africa and India are homosexuals, most of them were groomed/abused by a homosexual priest, an older seminarian, or even a relative such as an uncle. If the grooming and/or abuse occurred before the young man entered the seminary, the priesthood may have been perceived as a place one could live one’s life in the closet without relatives or friends knowing how one developed a homosexual orientation. If the grooming occured when the person was in the seminary and the seminarian did not want to return home to his family and friends as a homosexual, he might feel compelled to stay, be ordained, and be perceived as a heterosexual who sacrificed having a wife and children to follow Christ.

Closeted homosexual bishops who were groomed or abused, which affected their sexual orientation during their period of psychosexual development, are less inclined to discipline homosexual clerics reported for abuse because they themselves often engaged in the same behavior, particularly when they were younger. Because I rejected homosexual advances in the seminary and priesthood on the part of bishops, priests, and seminarians, and because I was not “turned” like so many other seminarians and priests, I pity these closeted homosexual bishops and priests whom I know act the way they do because of their own grooming/abuse experiences. While some closeted homosexual clerics who prey on young men and boys may be reported, often only decades after the abuse occurred, others may escape being caught only to be promoted often with the help of a bishop with whom they were sexually involved.

Catholics who argue that the sexual orientation of the pope, bishops, or priests is not important, fail to understand how a cleric’s orientation may impact his ministry and preaching. Insofar as gays and lesbians believe that “LGBTQ rights and abortion rights are inseparable,” most homosexual bishops and priests are not demonstrably as pro-family and pro-life as heterosexual clergy. With this in mind, consider the following questions:

1. What did Pope Francis and the U.S. bishops do or say when pro-life activists were unjustly imprisoned for praying at abortion clinics?

2. Has Pope Leo and the U.S. bishops ever spoken out against adoption regulations that prevent adoption agencies from denying children to gay and lesbian couples when studies show that “growing up with same-sex parents has several negative consequences for children.”

3. Has Pope Leo and the U.S. bishops ever denounced attempts to ban counseling for gender-identity issues and sexual-orientation conversion therapy?

4. What did the U.S. bishops do to halt illegal immigration by the Biden Administration in which hundreds of thousands of migrant children - in some cases delivered to strip clubs, parking lots, and shipping containers - were trafficked to work at brutal jobs across the country and even sex-trafficked to pedophiles?

5. Why has Pope Leo failed to respond to letters from abuse victims like Lisa Roers showing how now retired Omaha Archbishop George Lucas covered up her sexual abuse by Father Dennis Hanneman who remains in ministry as documented in "The Prayer of the Prey?"

6. Will Pope Leo continue to approve giving holy communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians like Cardinals Blase Cupich, Robert McElroy, and other pro-LGBTQ prelates support doing?

7. Will Pope Leo endorse Fiducia Supplicans which allows for the blessing of same-sex couples and retain its outed homosexual co-author, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, as the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith?

The way the Pope and Bishops deal with the above issues can not only provide an insight into their sexual orientation, but could also result in more Catholics either leaving or returning to the Church in the United States, Ireland, Germany, Brazil, and other countries where the majority of Catholic clergy today are homosexuals and where countless Evangelical Protestants today are former Catholics.

This Substack column is free. If you find it informative, please recommend it to others and consider supporting it by contributing to the “Save Our Seminarians” Fund.

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.