WHY IS POPE LEO COVERING UP ABUSE?

It it because he was groomed and abused himself?

In order to understand the reason behind the failure of Church officials to correct the problem of sexual abuse and their subsequent cover-ups of that abuse, one has to realize that the genesis of the problem lies within the infiltrated structures of the Catholic Church. That is to say, most of the predator priests who abused, raped, and sodomized countless children, the majority of whom were teenage boys, were themselves victims of prior predation. In my decades of work with clerical sexual abuse cases, I have yet to meet and interview one predator priest who had not been sexually abused himself in his former days in priestly formation. This explains both why they in turn abuse young people, and why Church officials have consistently covered up that abuse.

Let’s take the example of one priest whom we will call “Bill,” and one bishop whom we will call “Leo.”

Bill went to a high school seminary when he was 13 years old, where he was groomed and introduced to gay sex by a faculty member who purported to be a caring mentor. Like most such victims, Bill did not want to tell his parents how he had developed a homosexual orientation, which often happens to boys who are abused during their period of psychosexual development and prior to their ever having had an emotional or physical relationship with a woman. Instead of returning home, by staying in the seminary and getting ordained, Bill’s family and friends would never discover that he, like many abuse victims, suffers from same-sex attraction. Because Bill looked upon his 12 years of seminary sexual experiences with priests and seminarians as forms of love and friendship, he later, as a priest, engaged in the same behavior with boys in his parish. When one of those boys reported his predations to Father Bill’s bishop, Bishop Leo, the bishop sent Bill away for “treatment” and arranged for an out-of-court settlement with the victim. Later, Bishop Leo assigned Father Bill to another parish, just like countless homosexual priests are reassigned after getting caught using the gay Grindr hook-up app.

While this may explain why many priests abuse teenage boys, like they themselves were abused as teenagers, why is it that most bishops, like our Bishop Leo in the case above, cover up abuse instead of removing predators permanently from the priesthood? The answer is that insofar as over 80% of U.S. bishops, like the pope and Vatican officials, are thought to be closeted homosexuals, they can empathize with priests like Father Bill because they themselves not only suffer from same-sex attraction, but almost all of them engaged in homosexual acts before and after their ordination. One can’t help but notice that the excommunication decree of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was suspiciously timed, occurring shortly after the Archbishop accused Pope Francis of having abused novices when he was the Master of Novices at the Jesuit novitiate in Argentina.

What is the likelihood, for instance, that Robert Prevost, who left his family in Chicago and went to study at an Augustinian high school seminary in Michigan, may have been groomed and abused like Bill? It is worth noting that the Catholic seminary Prevost attended had housed a notorious predatory priest faculty member, Father Nelson Daniel Rupp. And if in fact Prevost was groomed, might it explain why he continues to cover up the reported satanic abuse of Lisa Roers by Omaha Father Dennis Hanneman, plus over 160 bishops credibly accused of abusing children and vulnerable adults?

Most sex abuse victims’ advocates, like the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) who filed a Vos Estis complaint against Pope Leo before his election, believe that Pope Leo is a part of the problem and not the solution when it comes to clerical sexual predation and homosexual misconduct in the Catholic Church. Consider, most recently, how Leo scandalously appointed Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the current Substitute for General Affairs at the Secretariat of State (i.e., the number two authority in the Secretariat), as the new Apostolic Nuncio to Italy. In 2002, Peña Parra was reported in Venezuela for abusing two minor seminarians and being involved in the violent death of two homosexuals. This abuse was confirmed by the then rector of the Major Seminary of Maracaibo, Rev. Enrique Perez, where the abuse allegedly took place, and by a committee of lay people who sent a substantial dossier on the matter to the Secretariat of State. The fact that Leo is promoting a number of prelates accused of engaging in and covering up abuse would lead one to believe that he himself was abused during his 12 years of formation in the Augustinian Order.

With respect to the case of Lisa Roers, about which I have written frequently, I urge the good laity of the Archdiocese of Omaha to follow the example of Catholics in the Buffalo Diocese who protested in front of the Chancery Office calling for the resignation of Bishop Richard Malone for covering up abuse, and the Catholics of the Richmond Diocese who protested before the Cathedral and in front of the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C. calling for Bishop Barry Knestout’s removal for his unjust suspension of Father Mark White - a priest who bravely spoke out against Church officials who were covering up clerical sexual predation. Here is a link to a video documenting Lisa Roers’ case, entitled, The Prayer of the Prey, which I urge the Omaha faithful to watch.

With respect to what I firmly believe is the number one problem facing the Catholic Church today, the following remark of the great Saint Catherine of Siena, which has been making the rounds recently in the awakened part of the Catholic media, is more than timely and speaks for itself:

“We have had enough exhortations to be silent. Cry out with a thousand tongues. I see the world is rotten because of silence….Speak the truth in a million voices. It is silence that kills.”

If you appreciate my research and writings, please contribute to the “Save Our Seminarians” Fund that will help safeguard young men from becoming victims of homosexual predation in U.S. Catholic seminaries.

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.